Champions of Eternity
by stalkeryik
Summary: The multiverse is sick, dying. From accross Hypertime, heroes gather in order to oppose the impending doom. This is the story of one such gathering--of a man named Stalker, and his allies. (Author's note: please read and review)
1. Invasion

I came in subsonic, traveling sixty thousand feet above the ground to avoid being seen or heard by the inhabitants of the planet below. As I entered the atmosphere, I found myself enveloped in a vast cloud of smoke. By the time I reached my desired altitude, visibility was down to one klick, and steadily getting worse.  
  
I went from 450 miles an hour to a dead halt in five seconds. This was not good. I hung, sixty thousand feet up, and tried to ignore the dread creeping up on me as my brain began to reach the inevitable conclusions.  
  
Where there's smoke, there's fire. For smoke to be present this high up, at such density, one would need a truly immense fire. One large enough to engulf nearly the entire planet. Or a nuclear bomb. One packing literally hundreds of megatons. Either way, this planet was doomed. Every living thing on the planet would freeze to death in the resulting nuclear winter.  
  
I took off at Mach 3, heading for The Wood.  
  
The Wood was special. Not just to me, or to any particular group of people then living on this planet. It was special for the entire planet, the solar system beyond, and for every inhabited planet in every solar system in the local group of stars. It was immense, covering an area roughly equivalent to that of the British Isles. Food bearing plants were everywhere. A man could live indefinitely and comfortably in there just on the fruit, grain and nuts he gathered. The woods were a zoologist's dream. Literally thousands of animal species made their homes under its shady eaves, some of them found nowhere else on the planet. For some reason, no really bad weather ever visited the place. It was as close to the Garden of Eden as any place in the multiverse was capable of getting.  
  
It was also inhabited by unicorns. They were the true owners of The Wood, the source of its remarkable fertility. In times past, these gentle creatures had been enslaved by an avaricious monarch. The efforts of the last free unicorn, an inept mage and a former bandit lady had freed them, and brought down the witch-built castle of the evil king. The herd had migrated across half a continent, spawning legends and miracles as they went, until they reached the last place in the world where they could live in peace. Having been absent for so long, all the woods where they had lived were gone, the trees cut down, the animals slaughtered for food or fur. Thus, these solitary creatures were forced into a herd, travelling the world to find a place to stay. The Wood became that place. Large enough that each could live in his or her accustomed solitude, yet be close enough to the others that they could band together for protection. I do not believe that they consciously considered this, but nevertheless, it was a major influence on their decision.  
  
Obviously, it had done them little good.  
  
I landed in what was left of a little glade close to the centre of The Wood. Half of the trees had been brutally toppled, torn up by the roots. The other half had been viciously mutilated, great gouges torn like giant claw marks through the living wood. Flames licked at the branches of several of them.  
  
Something white beneath one of the fallen trees caught my attention. I went over. The unicorn's eyes had already glazed over. Its eyes were dilated from the terror and agony of its final moments. It lay at an unnatural angle, its back twisted from the tree that had fallen upon it. The legs to were broken. Whoever had done this had first rendered the unicorn unable to escape before toppling the tree onto its back. I forced my hands to unclench before closing the poor creature's eyes. I could do that much for it. Under my breath I swore to find the ones responsible for this atrocity and exact payment in full for their crimes.  
  
From behind me, heavy footsteps pounded the ashen ground. I whirled. It took three seconds for the man to reach me. By the time the first second had ended, my eyes had taken in the man's blood red armour, gruesomely adorned with spikes, chains and skull motifs, and the humming chainsword in his right hand. In the next second, my memory had identified him as a Chaos Marine, a bloodthirsty inhabitant of the war-torn Universe 475WH. By the end of the third second, my left hand had closed over the wrist of his sword arm, and he was about to die.  
  
Using the man's own momentum against him, I thrust his sword arm away from me, stepping inside his blade's arc as I did so. At the same instant my right elbow lashed out, crushing in the skull-faced helmet worn by my opponent--as well as the skull within.  
  
As I let my opponent's lifeless body drop from my hands, the very trees around me seemed to sprout armoured warriors, all eager to avenge the death of their comrade. Depleted uranium bullets spanged off my quantum armour as the howling mass descended upon me. Dimly, I was aware of my own voice joining theirs, baying a bloody challenge to the pack of wolves in human form. I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to feel their blood seeping out through my fingers as I crushed their beating hearts within my hands. These animals would pay. They had destroyed an entire world, crushed entire civilizations who within a few centuries would have made their first steps towards the stars. They had destroyed a place of wonder and innocence, a haven of peace in a dark and violent multiverse, and now they would pay the price for their crimes.  
  
The first man to reach me screamed as I pulled his arm, still clad in its armour, from his body. I swung the disembodied appendage round me in a wide arc, driving back the hordes about me. Still howling, I advanced into the crowd, swinging my improvised bludgeon. I felt the rage within me leap up, growing ever stronger with each foe I felled. My lips skinned back over my teeth, revealing a feral grin that had nothing in it of mirth, nothing but the joy of battle and the death that awaited my foes.  
  
When once I was able to think coherently again, I found myself standing atop a mound of dead Chaos Marines. Sometime during the fight, I had discarded the arm and drawn my own sword. Blood was running down its length like a river. I felt exhausted. So this is what a berserker rage is like. I fell to my knees, using the sword to prop myself up. I'd never gone berserk this before. Then again, I'd never been as angry as I'd been a few minutes ago. It was not an experience I'd care to repeat. Using the sword, I levered myself upright. I stepped down from the pile of dead men. My mind was already forming a plan of action. There were certain to be survivors from whatever attack had laid waste the planetary surface. Now, these people would have to be evacuated to a safe place. My fortress, somewhere in the trackless voids of hypertime, would only be able to accommodate a few tens of thousands. Almost certainly, there would be many more. I sighed. Damn. I hated having to ask for help. The others would help, certainly. The Doctor alone, with his TARDIS, could host the entire remaining population of the planet, and still have room for billions more.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, obscured by the billowing clouds of smoke, something moved. I whirled, facing the oncoming shadow with my sword in hand. The stumbling shape resolved itself out of the swirling smoke, became more solid, and a unicorn, barely able to stand from her wounds, staggered toward me.  
  
I knew this one. She was the outcast, the one who stood apart from the herd. Once a year, on the anniversary of the liberation, the unicorns would abandon their solitary habits and gather at this glade, at the very center of the forest. She made her home here. They would play and laugh and talk about the day of the liberation, when they had been freed from the grasping hands of the king and his unnatural servant, the Red Bull.  
  
She did not resent the intrusion. They were, after all her people. But she could not find it in herself to join the gaiety, and so she would sit by a pool, staring at her reflection while the others played. The others found this strange. They kept coming, anyway. They came to honour the resident of that grove, to remember her story and her deeds. For she was the Last Unicorn, the one who had come to the dark king's castle, who had become a human woman and won the love of the king's son, the one who, restored to her original form, did battle with the dread Red Bull to avenge the man she loved and freed her brothers and sisters from their long captivity.  
  
This remarkable creature now stood before me. A low cry of pain and grief escaped her lips. That cry tore my heart. She was mourning for her people once again. I caught her as without warning, her legs gave out on her. Gently, I lowered her to the ash-covered forest floor.  
  
"Amalthea." That was her name. She was the only unicorn with a name.  
  
Her eyes wandered, unfocused. Her breathing was ragged, shallow.  
  
"Stalker? Are you there? I…I can't see you. Everything's a blur. I…I hurt so much!"  
  
"Yes, it's me. You're safe. They won't get you."  
  
"They killed my people, Stalker." The pain in her voice was heartrending. "I'm the last one again."  
  
Something fell onto her silvery coat. It was a tear. I could feel others trickling down my face. I hadn't cried in a long time.  
  
"I'm sorry, Amalthea," I cried, "I've failed you."  
  
A heavy hand descended upon my shoulder. Instantly I was up, my blade in my hand and poised at the top of its arc for a mighty blow.  
  
"DAMN YOU, YOU CHAOS-LOVING SON OF A B—"  
  
The blade stopped, barely inches away from the neck of Hal Jordan, Spectre.  
  
I stared at the man in incomprehension. It was impossible for him to be here. Yet here he was. The next thing I know, I was weeping against his chest.  
  
"They destroyed the whole planet, Hal! I…I couldn't do anything!" I slid off him to fall to my knees. "Amalthea's the last one. She's dying, Hal. She's dying and I couldn't do anything to save her!"  
  
Hal bent down. I could see the concern in his face. He'd been the same way before. That was why he was the Spectre now, not wearing an emerald ring and saving the galaxy with the Green Lantern Corps.  
  
"Stalker, I'm sorry." He looked at the dying Amalthea. "I can save her. That's the least I can do."  
  
He rose and went over to where the unicorn was lying. Gently, he laid his hands on the unicorn's breast. A gentle glow seemed to hover over Amalthea's broken body. When it lifted, she was sleeping peacefully. The great wounds that had been scored along her side were gone.  
  
I got up and went over to him.  
  
"Thanks, Hal," I said.  
  
He looked me in the eye. "I know what it feels like, Stalker. It's what I can do to keep one of my friends from going the same way."  
  
He looked down at the sleeping unicorn.  
  
"This isn't an isolated incident, Stalker. Things like this have been happening everywhere. Some bastards jump in from out-universe, shoot up the unprepared natives, then leave. Not even the barriers placed around the interdicted universes are stopping them."  
  
I nodded. By all rights, the Chaos Marines should not have been able to leave their native universe even if they tried. Gigantic energy barriers placed around realms like theirs, realms where the natives were particularly unpleasant or just unsuitable for contact with the multiverse at large, prevented anything from entering or leaving those areas of hypertime.  
  
Hal went on.  
  
"The multiverse is cancerous, Stalker. That's what's causing all this. If we don't stop it, it'll corrupt every timeline in existence. I came here to warn you. Apparently, I was too late. I'm sorry."  
  
He took a deep breath, then continued.  
  
"The others are meeting at the Linear Men's citadel as we speak. They're discussing the measures we need to take to stop this plague before we're all consumed.'  
  
"I'll be there, Hal. Just as soon as I get Amalthea to safety." I looked around.  
  
"The survivors need to be evacuated," I said.  
  
"I'll take care of it. Just be on your way."  
  
"Thanks again, Hal. I'll be seeing you, then."  
  
With those words, I encased the Last Unicorn in a quantum bubble before flying up, up into outer space, where I teleported myself and my sleeping friend to the safety of my fortress. 


	2. Vanishing Point

A dark room, buried deep in the bowels of an immense fortress, floating in a place where time and space have no meaning. Within the room, a table, a holographic projector recessed in its center. And seated round the table, beings of power. Aliens, scientists, adventurers, men and women capable of walking between worlds with the merest exertion of will.  
  
All stared, transfixed, at the images floating like malevolent spirits over the table. Atrocity followed on atrocity, a horrendous procession of rape, torture and deliberate cruelty that shocked even the eldest among them. Memories, plucked straight from the screaming minds of traumatized, heartsick victims by the Spectre.  
  
After what seemed like forever, the projector stopped, the last image of the last memory still hanging frozen above the table's surface, until with a shuddering movement, Axel Asher pawed the console built into the table at his elbow, extinguishing the projector. Above our heads, the lights came up, shedding a harsh glow on the faces around the table. For a moment, there was silence. Then, someone spoke.  
  
"I don't think any of us realized how much the cancer had grown." Heads turned to regard the speaker. She stared down at her hands, palms down on the table, and the blood red gem gleaming on her left wrist. She brought the bauble up, regarding it with bitter eyes. The corner of her mouth quirked up, forming a half-smile that had very little mirth and all too much rage behind it.  
  
"All the time we've spent gallivanting from universe to universe, saving the day, kicking butt, preventing things from going wrong everywhere…" She took in a shuddering breath. "Did we accomplish NOTHING?"  
  
From across the table, Jackson King spoke. "At the risk of sounding trite, Blink, I think you accomplished a lot more than you think. Think about it. All those universes you've saved. Hundreds of trillions of souls living in each one. Every one of them has a chance to live a happy, productive life without having to be afraid of space aliens or super- bastards or horrible elder gods from the Infinite Void coming over to kill, rape or maim them just because they've had a bad hair day. That's an accomplishment."  
  
"Jackson," I said, "When Hal and I were down there, he mentioned something about this cancer infecting the multiverse. You and Blink seem to know more about it than the rest of us. What is it, and why is it causing Chaos Marines to crawl out of that shithole of a universe which they have no business leaving to come to that planet to kill my friends?"  
  
Jackson leaned away from me as I grated out the last few words, his eyes widening as he realized the vehemence behind my words. He blinked, then rested his elbows on the table and gave me a sympathetic look. Anybody else I would have blasted into the floor at once for that presumption. But Jackson King had borne his own grief and his own burden before mine. He'd witnessed the deaths of his teammates and had endured the humiliation of seeing their sacrifice trivialized by the powers-that- be, as the world they'd died to protect rejected them and all they'd done for it, then found himself rendered irrelevant. He'd faced all that, and then came back to fight the good fight when he'd found his world still needed him. For all that, I respected him. And accepted the sympathy of a man who'd also known grief.  
  
"It's not easy, I know," he murmured. "You just try to make amends where you can—so that their deaths are not unpaid for. Just like I have."  
  
He turned to the keypad set into the table by his elbow. There was a mechanical-sounding hum as the holoprojector within the table powered itself up. An image appeared above the table.  
  
It was beautiful. Reality in all its glory stood before us, shining like a jewel, multitudinous facets sparkling and shifting according to some hidden order, sending sparkles of rainbow light dancing across the walls of the room.  
  
"You all know what this is." We did indeed. There was not a one of us that had not gaped in wonder and delight when they first saw the structure of the multiverse unfolding before their very eyes. Each universe turned, suspended within a matrix of 196,833 dimensions, the whole structure resembling a giant, multidimensional snowflake. Channels coursed between the universe, blood-red seas of energy that some called 'Hypertime' and others 'the Bleed'.  
  
The hologram began to zoom in on a section of the Snowflake. As the image grew larger, a small black speck gradually became visible. The image kept on going, moving closer and closer to the rapidly growing black spot. Details could be made out now. The—object was the best word to describe it—appeared to be immense. It squatted forebodingly over a space that by a conservative estimate could have contained hundreds of millions of universes. There was a organic look to the surface of the thing, as if it had been ripped still alive from a decaying body and placed where it could grow like a malignant tumour.  
  
There was a soft rustle of whispering that soon expanded into shocked, incredulous ejaculations from all around the table. That thing seemed impossible. There was no way it could have grown to such size without having been detected. But there it was, an immense parasite within the body of reality itself. As we watched, tendrils of organic stuff began probing towards the brilliant thread that represented the physical form of a living universe. As the tentacles touched the thread, it changed. The shining, silver line bloated, in an instant transformed into something that resembled an immense maggot. More tendrils shot out, instantly connecting what had once been a healthy hypertimeline to the main body of the organic mass. Within moments, the space between was filled with the noxious substance. Then, the whole agglomeration gave a sickening lurch before reverting to its former, quiescent state.  
  
"That, ladies and gentlemen, is the enemy. Someone or something messed with one of the variables that influence the structure of reality—and that is the result. An area of rogue space that just keeps growing like a cancer eating away at the heart of the multiverse." King paused to input more instructions into the holoprojector. A series of formulae began to scroll down from the top of the image, overlaying that frightful picture of reality gone mad. "That's not the worst of it, however." He nodded at the formulae. "These formulae describe the dynamics of the cancer. I think those of you here with backgrounds in Artificial Intelligence might recognize them."  
  
For a few seconds, there was a tense silence. Then, from a corner of the darkened room, someone spoke. "Gods alive. That's a neural net. It's sentient."  
  
The room erupted in an uproar. Kang the Conqueror stood up, shouting and gesticulating wildly, nearly striking the men next to him with his windmilling arms.  
  
"QUIET!" Jackson King's telepathic voice cut through the noise like a chainsaw. In the sudden silence, there intruded the sound of a scuffle at the far end of the room. Kang the Conqueror had managed to teleport one of his massive energy guns from his personal arsenal and was waving it about like a madman. Hyperman and Access—the two people sitting beside him—had grabbed him by the arms and were presently wrestling him into the ground. Deftly, Hyperman relieved the Conqueror of his weapon. A superstrength punch to the head left him unconscious and unable to disrupt the meeting further.  
  
Jackson's glare swept the assembly, as if daring anyone else to try and create trouble. Finding no one, he continued speaking. "That's right. The cancer's sentient. It's capable of anticipating our moves, acting to counter them, and acting on its own initiative. Blink's group and mine have both been fighting localized versions of the cancer for the past year. We only realized the true scope of the threat when Hal Jordan popped in on us a few weeks ago. Since then, we've been engaged in intelligence gathering, identifying which areas of reality the cancer was likely to infect." He gave me a wry look. "I must admit, though, that this morning's episode came as a surprise."  
  
The discussion turned to the formulation of a plan to defeat the cancer. A small and rather vocal faction, most of them borderline supervillains like Kang if truth be told, were strongly in favour of starving the cancer by destroying every universe within its reach, in effect creating a giant firebreak. Yet others wanted to attack the cancer directly, punching a superhuman spearhead deep into its viscid guts. King argued, and in the case of the former, shouted them down, explaining, not so patiently, why both solutions were clearly unacceptable. Hal turned up a few hours into the discussion, to give us a little more info on just what we'd be facing. The biggest threat, according to him, came from the cancer's ability to break down the walls between realities. That was what had brought the Chaos Marines over to the unicorns' planet for a round of rape, plunder and destruction. Worse still, it was able to do so almost completely undetected, so the first warning any of us got would be the presence of external forces running rampant over that universe's unprepared inhabitants.  
  
The meeting broke up late, each one of us returning to his own sanctum sanctorum to prepare for the tasks ahead. In the coming months, we would be fighting on battlefields, searching out the enemy in high councils of alien courts, and hunting down the agents of the cancer where they appeared. I would need help carrying out my part in this. There were skills I lacked, powers that I was totally defenseless against. I would need comrades by my side to cover for my lacks. In the morning I would begin my search, and when my search was done, we would ride forth, to avenge the unicorns' world, and every other world that had been consumed by the cancer.  
  
These were the thoughts running through my head as I stood in the teleportation chamber of Vanishing Point, awaiting my turn to transport myself to my own fortress, half a multiverse away. It was then that the man approached me. He was slender to the point of gauntness, his body enveloped in a great black robe that seemed too large for him. I'd seen him during the council, a quiet shadow, always listening but never saying a word.  
  
"You are Stalker," he said.  
  
"Yes," I replied. My face remained resolutely turned towards the end of the queue, and the teleporter circle beyond. I was not in the mood for conversation, not right then.  
  
The gaunt man reached up and lowered his hood, for the first time revealing his face. A remarkable face, it was. His skin was golden, metallic golden. It gleamed in the harsh artificial light cast by the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. White—pure white—curls tumbled from his high forehead. But most remarkable were the eyes. Tiny hourglasses stared back at me from those eldritch orbs. There was laughter in those strange eyes, the nihilistic laughter of a man who has stared death in the face for years on end, and who, in the end, had failed to retain all his sanity. Those eyes mocked me now, mocked the station we stood within, mocked everything they saw.  
  
"What," he said, "no yells of fear, no drawn sword ready to strike down the sinister magician?"  
  
I looked him over, more closely this time than I had done at first. "I know you. You are Raistlin, the Sorcerer Supreme of the world called Krynn. Is there something I can do for you?" As I pointed out earlier, I was not in the best of moods. It was no surprise, therefore, that not a little sarcasm had found its way into my voice and words.  
  
Raistlin's thin lips stretched, skinning back from his teeth, creating a smile that had no mirth in it, only long-remembered bitterness. "So," he rasped, "the brave warrior reacts to the mage as brave warriors always have: with suspicion and anger. Is there an intrinsic flaw, perhaps, in the way their minds are constructed? I come to offer you my help, warrior, if you will only take it."  
  
I took a deep breath, and got my temper back under control. A terrible thing, my temper. It was rarely that I allowed it to rage unchecked, but recent events had given me all too many reasons to allow it to do so. The effort required to rein it in at this time was immense.  
  
"My apologies," I said, finally, "I should not have snapped at you like that. My grief made me impolite. Forgive me."  
  
Raistlin now smiled a real smile. Admittedly, it was micrometric, so small as to seem imperceptible, but it was there, and there was warmth behind it. "I accept your apology." He sobered. "For what it is worth, I sorrow for your loss, too. I was not acquainted with your friends, the unicorns, but their loss is a bitter blow to the multiverse." He touched a finger to the corner of his eye. " To destroy such beauty, when it is already so rare, is a crime against every decent thing."  
  
I nodded. Raistlin was a man cursed with a strange double vision. Whenever he looked at something, he would see it as it would be in the future, as it aged and decayed, and finally succumbed to the inexorable march of time. Everything he saw, trees, animals, even people, decayed as he looked at it. He would never be able to enjoy the beauty of a field of flowers, or a forest clearing, or a pretty girl. Only the unicorns, or their fellow Immortals, would appear to him as they appeared to the rest of humanity. He would feel the loss of such timeless beauty as keenly as if it had happened to him.  
  
"You said you wished to help me, Raistlin. Just what do you intend to do?"  
  
"Hm?" he said. "Ah, yes, indeed. I came to offer you my services as a spellcaster. Each and every member of the Council of Sorcerers Supreme now stands alongside a group of adventurers, ready to lend their mystic might to their efforts. I myself have chosen to stand by you."  
  
"Is that so? Then I thank you. I must say, I'm flattered."  
  
"Indeed? You have no qualms with me standing by your side? Given my reputation, I would have expected some protest from you."  
  
I chuckled. "No, Raistlin. I believe you'll find your reputation around our little community is not what it once was. News travels fast in hypertime. Your exploits with the rest of the Council are common knowledge. If anything, they've shown us you're not the man you once were. Any one of us would be glad to have you by our side."  
  
Raistlin's smile grew broader, one of genuine pleasure. "I was not aware my adventures after Chaos' defeat were known outside the Council." He chuckled. "Perhaps I should be glad they are."  
  
"Indeed," I said. Then, laughing together, we stepped into the teleporter and let the quantum beam carry us away, back to the fortress that was my home. 


	3. The Fortress, The Mage, and The Unicorn ...

I stood at the bar and poured myself a whiskey. Raistlin was already ensconced in an easy chair, a mug of hot water in his hand, within which he was steeping a foul-smelling concoction that he claimed would "help his cough". Something about the way he said it gave me the idea that that was not, strictly speaking, the truth. Then again, since I'd met him, I hadn't seen or heard him cough once.  
  
I closed the bottle and crossed to where the mage was. He was looking around, taking in the room, as though he wanted to catalogue every article I kept there. There seemed to be an air of arrogant amusement about the man that grated on me. I did my best to ignore it as waited for the mage to complete his inspection of my quarters from his armchair.  
  
Finally, those strange eyes fixed themselves on me. I opened my mouth to speak, only to be beaten to the punch.  
  
"You are an enigma," said the mage, before I could get a word out.  
  
I gaped. I had been expecting several things from this man, but this was not one of the. "S-say what?" I stammered.  
  
"I said that you are an enigma," he replied. "I believe you are a man of intelligence. Surely that you understand."  
  
I found myself briefly tempted to snarl at the man. I resisted. Instead, I shrugged. "I haven't given much thought to the matter. Perhaps I am."  
  
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. Slightly. "Amazing," he murmured. "You do think of some things, don't you?"  
  
"More than you think." This time the urge to snarl was too great. I pushed myself upright, ready to trade insult for insult with this man. Just in time, I fought my temper down. Trading insults with Raistlin Majere was almost always a losing proposition. I sank back down into my easy chair and glared at the man. Logic warred with emotion for a few, brief, tense moments, and won.  
  
Right, then. It wouldn't do to trade insults with this man. His considerable capacity for insult, sarcasm and imprecation aside, Raistlin would be providing magical aid to the group I intended to gather. Insulting him would only destroy all hope of any kind of working relationship. Still…allowing him to run around pissing everybody of would hardly be conducive to team spirit…  
  
I felt a headache coming on. I made a mental note to myself not to accept any such offers of alliance so readily in the future. In the meantime, I had to prevent the mage from pissing me—and anybody else I brought into the team—off beyond all hope of reconciliation. I brought the whiskey up and tossed back.  
  
I realized now how totally I'd been taken in by his friendly act earlier. Hero or not, Sorcerer Supreme or not, Raistlin was obviously a sociopath. And he'd seemed so sincere back at Vanishing Point, too.  
  
I frowned. I was forgetting something. Back when we'd first met, Raistlin had snarled at me as well. It was only after I'd pointed out how unreasonable he'd been that he'd backed off. I felt my lips curling upwards. Maybe, just maybe…  
  
Yes, that was it. I had a pretty good idea what was eating Raistlin. Time to put that theory to the test…  
  
"I think its reflexive," I said.  
  
The only sign of any response to my statement was a slight widening of the eyes, barely detectable had I not been looking for it. A thin smile spread itself across his skeletal features. "Attacking me with non sequiturs will not work, my friend." Those hourglass eyes fixed upon me, boring into mine like a snake's, hypnotizing its prey. There was a flash of white, as the lips momentarily parted. A predator, this man was, with words his weapons and other human beings his prey. "But you are welcome to try your best, though."  
  
I sat a little straighter, matching him stare for stare. It wouldn't do, allowing myself to be cowed that easily. I kept my voice firm, even. "I'll tell you what I'm talking about. It's your chronic rudeness. That unstoppable barrage of sarcasm that you're constantly bombarding people with. Every time you're forced to interact with other people, that snarling, snapping subconscious of yours takes over. You're not even aware you're doing it. You, Raistlin Majere, are an insufferable, annoying son of a bitch because you just can't help it."  
  
He sat bolt upright, eyes staring. From his mouth there came a hissing sound, like that of a serpent balked of its prey. He drew himself up, drawing breath as if to make a retort. His right hand half-lifted from the arm-rest of his chair, the fingers already twisting, making a mystic gesture of attack.  
  
Abruptly, he stopped. The arm froze in mid-air, then dropped back onto the cushion. He glared at me for a long while. Then, the corners of his mouth rose. A noise, which I realized was a chuckle emerged from his lips. A moment later, he was laughing.  
  
"Ah," he said, once he had gotten himself back under control. "I fear you must forgive me. You are quite right. My comrades on the Council have spoken more than once of this…tendency of mine. A relic of the days when I was a Companion of the Lance, I suppose. I apologize." He leaned back, still chuckling.  
  
I allowed myself the luxury of a sigh of relief. Had anything gone wrong…it didn't bear thinking of.  
  
"It can't win you that many friends, though. And I'll bet that teamwork's a bitch."  
  
The mage bowed his head, looking thoughtful. "Yes," he said, after a while, "Yes, I suppose it is." He looked up. A wry smile played over his gaunt features. "Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing. As you well know, I have only ever "teamed-up", as some people put it, with my brothers of the Council." He chuckled. "My social life has been rather limited these last forty years."  
  
"And your brothers haven't been put off by your…attitude?"  
  
"Why, no." He gazed off into empty space for a moment, tapping his chin. "As a matter of fact, I do not recall ever having spoken to them as I did to you." He shrugged. "You may be right. As you suggest, my…attitude may very well be nothing more than a deeply conditioned reflex, set off by my first interaction with…ah, non-magical people." His expression sobered. "If you know as much as you seem to of my history, you will be aware that my experiences among them have not been at all pleasant."  
  
"I know. It's hard, isn't it, remaining sane, when the world is against you for no better reason than that you're different. I know."  
  
"You do?" he said, sitting up and leaning forward, with an inquisitive look in his eye.  
  
I did not take the invitation to elaborate further. "Let's just say that I encountered some of what you faced, back on my home world. I'd rather not go any further."  
  
His face clouded over. He straightened. His mouth opened, ready to let fly with an insult—and then he stopped. He sank back in his chair instead, his expelling a breath through his teeth with a hiss. "Be that as you wish, then," he said, shortly.  
  
"Look," I said. "I'm not trying to be unfriendly or anything. It's just…bringing up my past…before this," and I waved, trying to encompass in that single gesture the room around us, the station around it, and the flickering void beyond, "it's painful. I'm sorry." I got up, went to the bar, poured myself another drink, and tossed it down. I turned the empty glass over and over in my hand, staring at it without really seeing. I put the glass back on the bar and turned back towards the mage.  
  
"Listen," I said. "I'll tell you my story. You deserve that much, since we're going to be working together. But not now. Maybe later." I sighed. "I want some time to prepare…get ready to open old wounds…"  
  
I took a deep breath, passed my hand over my eyes, and straightened. "I'm…going to check on Amalthea. Then I've got the refugees that Hal beamed over to deal with. Are you going to be all right here? Is there anything I can get you?"  
  
Raistlin lazily raised his steaming mug to me in a mocking toast. "I will be fine," he said. "Go and see your…lady friend. But, I would like to go along with you, when you visit the refugees." He sank into his chair. It took me a few seconds to realize that the short, jerky motions he was making meant that he was laughing. I stared at him for a while more, then turned away with a muttered curse. Damn the man. Even when he was being polite, was he still going to be insufferable? What the hell was he laughing at? And what did he mean by calling Amalthea my "lady friend"?  
  
The room where I'd left Amalthea was dark, bereft of the usual knickknacks and antiques that decorated the rest of the fortress. The light from the corridor formed a bright rectangle on the floor as the door slid open. The sound of sobbing floated out. The sound was incongruously like music to my ears. I sighed. Even the grief of a unicorn was a thing of beauty. That just made seeing it even worse. I quietly swore to myself that I'd make those Chaos bastards pay, preferably by collapsing their stinking Warp in on them and their repugnant gods.  
  
In the corner, where I'd laid a pallet of straw for the unicorn to lie on, a pale shape quivered. The unicorn seemed to glow in the half- light. I took a step forward, hoping to comfort the poor creature. I was halfway towards her when the shape on the straw gasped abruptly—and then sat up.  
  
My breath hissed inward through my teeth. After a while, I swore. "Oh, hell."  
  
"Damn you!" I screamed at Raistlin when I got back. The mage ignored me, seemingly immersed in his tea and the copy of The Hive Queen and The Hegemon that he'd appropriated from my bookshelf.  
  
"You knew about this, you stinking bastard!" I was standing behind him, my arms upraised, hands clenched into fists, though I was making every effort to avoid actually striking the man. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me, damn you?" The mage did not respond. I turned and hit the wall beside me. The blow left a considerable dent in the Imperial battle steel underlying the wallpaper. "Say something, dammit!"  
  
Raistlin took a sip from his mug of tea. He glanced at me sidewise, smirked, and raised the mug in mocking salute.  
  
"DAMN YOU! Look at her!" The mage did not respond. Snarling in my frustration, I seized the back of the chair and wrenched it around, so that the mage now faced the Last Unicorn. "I said, look at her!"  
  
To my very immense surprise, the fight seemed to go out of the mage at once. He sagged, letting his breath out noisily through his mouth. The sight of Amalthea had sucked the arrogance from him like air rushing out of a leaky tire.  
  
Sitting in the chair opposite the mage, wrapped in my cape and keening to herself in grief with tears streaming down her face, was a beautiful young woman. Her skin was white, almost pure white. Upon her forehead, a star of white blazed forth where the horn had been, giving off enough light to illuminate the entire room on its own.  
  
I felt drained. The hostility I'd felt only a few moments before was gone. In its place was a desire to make peace and have done with the whole sordid affair. I looked at Amalthea again. As a woman, she had the kind of beauty that could carry off any look—such as wearing absolutely nothing but a borrowed cape.  
  
She raised her head, as if realizing that two stunned men were both staring at her. Uncertainly, haltingly, her lips formed a word.  
  
"Why?" By all rights, her voice should have been hoarse, her throat raw from hours spent crying in the darkened room as I met with the heroes of the multiverse. Instead, it was like a pure musical note, cutting through the air, thrumming with all the grief and heartache of its fair owner. A white hand emerged from within the cape. She stared at it dumbly, seemingly unable to believe it was there.  
  
"Why did this happen?" She sounded…unreal, as if this whole mess were some sort of dream, and reality would start to assert itself soon. "My people…all dead. I'm all alone. And—and I'm not a unicorn any more. I'm human!" The last word was a high-voiced shriek, reverberating through the walls and floor as she fell from the chair to her knees on the floor, fingers clawed. The cape fell from her shoulders as, wailing, she beat the carpet with her fists.  
  
I crossed the carpet, picked up the cape, and placed it around her again, holding her arms through the fabric to stop her from hitting the floor. A thin hand caressed her cheek. To my surprise, I found Raistlin beside me. The harsh humour had faded from his expression. In its place was a gentleness that surprised me, coming from a man with his reputation for sarcasm and acerbic wit.  
  
"Don't cry, little one," he said. He helped me raise Amalthea to her feet and then set her down in the chair again.  
  
"Stalker and I, the both of us, we will help you." The mage's voice was soft, soothing. Lower still, he added, as if to himself"A soul such as yours does not deserve to see such horrors."  
  
I knelt down beside the chair. "Who did this to you, Amalthea? What happened?"  
  
She looked at me with eyes large from terror and grief and madness. "The green man," she whispered, as she clung to me. "The man from the forest—the man who spoke to you. He came while you were gone and he—Oh!" She buried her head in my shoulder and burst into tears. "He changed me! He made me human again!"  
  
I held the poor creature in my arms as she sobbed her heart out. "Who does she mean?" asked Raistlin, standing behind me.  
  
"Hal Jordan. The Spectre," I replied shortly. Damn. What was Hal playing at? Hadn't the poor—I caught myself before I could begin thinking of Amalthea as a girl—creature been through enough? Jordan was going to owe me a long explanation.  
  
"Change me back," she said, suddenly, looking at Raistlin. "You are a magician. Please, help me. I don't want to remain like this."  
  
Raistlin started. "What—no. That I cannot do."  
  
At close range, I saw the renewed pain creeping into her face. The worst thing was how beautiful she was. Even a soul experiencing the grief of losing an entire people could not mar that beauty. That made it even worse to watch. She buried her head into my shoulder again, sobbing.  
  
The mage came over, laying his hand on her shoulder. "I am sorry, little one. With all my heart, I truly am. The man who changed you is one of the most powerful beings in all reality. He serves the Creator Himself. If it was he who changed you, then it was for good reason. And he possesses power enough to prevent a mere Sorcerer Supreme—such as myself—from undoing his work. You are permanently, irrevocably human." I could hear the regret in his voice as he spoke. From out of his robe, he produced a handkerchief and handed it to Amalthea.  
  
"Here," he said. "Dry your eyes."  
  
"What am I to do now?" she asked, after having done so.  
  
I straightened. "The first step, I guess, is to find out why Hal Jordan changed you. And then—" I took a deep breath. "We are fighting a war, Amalthea. The attack on your homeworld was just one of the opening salvos. Like it or not, I think you've been drafted into that war." I looked her straight in the face. "I'm recruiting a team, Amalthea. It's quite likely that Hal knew about this, and that when he changed you, he meant you to be a part of that team. A crucial part. You may not want this—neither do I—but it has been done. And it's a chance to fix what went wrong in the first place, to prevent the same thing from happening to other worlds. I don't think that, willingly at least, you'd allow that to happen. I've known you for too long to ever doubt that. More importantly, we can help you." I leaned forward, touched her on the cheek. "Everybody needs friends, Amalthea. Even a unicorn who's been transformed into a woman. We'll be there for you, whatever happens. Trust us on this."  
  
She looked up at me for one long moment, then nodded. And smiled a smile that lit up the room more than the glowing mark on her forehead ever could.  
  
"That's great," I said. "Come on, let's find you something to wear." I helped her stand, and together with Raistlin, we trooped out of the room. 


	4. Healing the Sick

It was late at night, far beyond my station's midnight. The automatic systems had long since extinguished any lights illuminating the fortress' miles of corridors and chambers—all but the few lamps that stood around the chairs in which Raistlin Majere and I sat. Amalthea had long since gone to bed, worn out both physically and emotionally by the strains the long day had put on her. Given the trauma which the poor girl had endured in the last forty-eight hours, neither Raistlin nor I had thought it the wisest course to expose her to the refugees Hal had ported in from her homeworld. There were fifteen thousand, all told, brutalized, beaten, ripped untimely from their homes and thrust into a multiverse immeasurably vaster and more unfeeling than the tiny orb which had birthed them.  
  
We were overruled. When the woman who had been the Last Unicorn heard of the plight of the refugees, her first instinct was to rush to their aid. Neither the mage nor I had been able to dissuade her. She had not raised her voice, or argued. "I must go to them," was all she said. Neither Raistlin nor I had been able to stop her. Not for lack of will to do so. We simply found ourselves unable to protest. She had walked past us to the hatch leading out to the corridors of the fortress, and we could only follow.  
  
I am forced to admit that her aid was invaluable to us, during that long, tortuous day. The refugees shrank from us—Raistlin and I—in fear, while they flocked to do her bidding, with a look of devotion on their faces that was not far from worship. I found this unsettling, during the few moments in which I had time to think. I did not dwell on this for long, however, being preoccupied with offering what aid I could to the wounded.  
  
Gradually, the refugees warmed to the mage and I. Being associated with Amalthea helped. She would ask one or the other of us for help, from time to time. It was at those times that the frightened refugees learned that the two frightening men, the mage with the metallic skin and hourglass eyes and the armored warrior with the katana scabbarded at his waist, were not so dangerous after all. Maybe…just maybe, they might even be friends. Allies in this war, and guides to this strange new world, into which they had so suddenly been thrust, without warning, like newborn babes.  
  
It was while we were attending to the wounded that we discovered Amalthea's powers. The fortress had a large sickbay, salvaged from the wreck of a Galaxy-class cruiser of the United Federation of Planets, destroyed by the alien empire known as the Dominion in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles between those two great powers. Many of the fortress' systems had been acquired in a similar manner, salvaged from derelicts, purchased ready made from commercial suppliers, or stolen outright from people who really shouldn't have been allowed to run around with such things in the first place. Even the battle steel walls of the fortress themselves had been taken in a lightning raid on the Kuat Drive Yards, the massive systemwide facility that churned out the Imperial Star Destroyers that had made the Empire a feared force throughout the galaxy.  
  
Just then, the sickbay was filled to overflowing. The most grievously injured lay on diagnostic beds, the automated systems within the beds busy with stasis fields and waldo-mounted hyposprays, doing their best to keep their patients alive with the limited resources and processing power available to them. Not for the first time did I wish I'd been able to save the EMH from that damned Galaxy. I was a physicist by training, a warrior and explorer by profession. Advanced medicine was not among the skills I'd had reason or inclination to acquire. I made a mental note to myself to correct that deficiency once this madness was over.  
  
At the door, two men carried an injured comrade in. Being occupied at the moment with programming a bed, I could spare them but a glance as I worked. Not that what I saw was good. Sucking chest wound. With no EMH to perform operations, the best we could do was to keep those with life- threatening injuries under stasis, till we were able to get someone with proper medical training to them. Furthermore…I looked around. Almost all the beds were occupied. Damn. Even with triage, we wouldn't be able to save everybody. Once more, I cursed my lack of medical knowledge, cursed myself for not foreseeing the need for it. Then I took a deep breath, got control over myself once more. Nothing I could do about my lack now. I would just have to make do.  
  
I was just about to go over to the group by the door when Amalthea cut in front of me, heading for the same spot, a strange look upon her face. By all rights, the stress of the last few hours should have left her haggard and wan. To all of us, it merely seemed as if her beauty had been refined, made purer through contact with the horror and pain that raged around us.  
  
Before the two healthy men could stop her, she put her hands on the wound of the dying man.  
  
And the world went mad.  
  
Raistlin brushed past me, as if to stop her. The one healer whom Hal had rescued had risen from where she was tending a woman with a gashed open arm, her mouth open to shout a warning. The two men supporting Chest Wound reached out with their free arms, attempting too late to ward the woman who had been the Last Unicorn off.  
  
The mark on Amalthea's forehead flared, bathing the room with the light of a small star. From around the room, various people shrieked or cursed, depending on their respective personalities, as the light overloaded their optic nerves, blinding them. Then the light began to change colours. Even through my eyelids, I could see them shifting, running, dancing from one end of the spectrum to the other.  
  
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light was gone.  
  
Amalthea stood before the injured man. The strange expression was gone, replaced by uncertainty, and not a little fear. His friends had released him as soon as the light had gone off. They now flanked him, staring shocked as he gingerly probed the smooth skin where his wound had once been.  
  
Then, he looked up, and stared wide-eyed at the beautiful woman who'd saved his life. The next moment, he was on his knees before her, babbling his thanks and pledging undying loyalty to whatever cause she chose to point him at. With a flamboyant sweep, he drew his sword and offered it to her. After a slight pause, his friends did the same.  
  
She looked at us, her face uncertain. Raistlin and I exchanged glances. Experienced adventurers both, it was even money that we were both thinking the same thing: We don't need them tripping us up. We were lone operators, the two of us. We fought our secret wars in the shadows, in the cracks between realities. Not for us the valiant stand against the forces of darkness on the field of battle. Our way was the dagger in the darkness, the hidden snare, the removal of the nail for want of which kingdoms were lost. For obvious reasons, the thought of these three loons—these three obviously highborn loons, steeped in glorious traditions of chivalry and romance and courtly love—attaching themselves to us was less than appealing to either of us.  
  
Before Raistlin could speak, however, I strode forward. These were not normal times. We were fighting a war on a scale beyond human comprehension, far beyond any on which we had previously operated. Supernatural menaces, invaders from another universe—all small cheese, compared to what we were up against. Just like that, our whole paradigm had changed. The old ways, the ways of fighting in the darkness, were obsolete. It was time to step out, out into the light, where people could see you, out in the light where people could see you, knew where you were. Where people like us, those who stood between the ravening darkness and everything that was in the least bit good, could stand up beside us, joining strength to strength to thrust the darkness away.  
  
The times had changed, and I'd be damned if I couldn't change along with them.  
  
I put my hand on Amalthea's shoulder. "Say yes." The three men on the floor eyed me suspiciously.  
  
"What—" began Raistlin.  
  
"Later," I cut him off.  
  
"You cannot be serious," he hissed. "We face destruction, evil on a scale never seen before—and you want these," an angry gesture to the three kneeling men, "as allies? They will die, Stalker, quickly and horribly. They are of no use to us."  
  
I spread my arms, using my body as a barrier between the three enraged men and the black-robed mage. "Enough," I said, as they attempted to push past me. I took a step forward, forcing them back despite their combined efforts. The three men fell back, raising their swords to en garde positions.  
  
I favoured them with a glare. "You know, I just pushed the three of you back. I don't know about you, but to me, it obviously means I'm a bit stronger than the three of you combined." I jerked a thumb back at Raistlin. "The guy back there is a Sorcerer Supreme. He sterilizes entire planets just by looking at them funny. Don't you think you ought to think a bit before trying to take either of us on?"  
  
I spread my hands, now trying to appear reasonable. "Look, I don't mean you or any of your people harm. Neither does my friend back there. The only reason you or any of your people are here is because you got pulled into this whole mess by a bunch of nihilistic, absolutely anti-moral assholes who had no business even being in your neck of reality. But the fact remains that you and everybody else are here, in the middle of a war totally beyond anything you've ever seen before. Normally, I wouldn't be doing this, but I don't have the time to find you and your people a new home world. What's more, I really don't think any place I dumped you on would be truly safe. Like it or not, all of reality's a combat zone. And you people are simply unequipped to face anything that's likely to come at you."  
  
Advancing on the trio, I began listing the various deficiencies of the culture now residing in my fortress. "No mages beyond power level Gamma. That's our fancy way of saying that your magic-users aren't really all that powerful—if they're still alive, that is. Next, the genetic potential necessary for super-humanity to develop won't manifest among you for another five hundred years. That's all very well and good then, but pretty much useless now. Finally, your technology is barely beyond the very early Gunpowder Age. When Type IV Space Age civilizations find themselves powerless against the types of threats we're facing here, I don't think you're going to be able to do much, are you?"  
  
They looked at me blankly. One of them—the one on the right, licked his lips and adjusted his grip on his sword. I looked at them and sighed. My last few sentences had sailed directly over their heads. I shook my head and tried again.  
  
"Listen. Just take it on my word that you have become embroiled in a conflict against forces far beyond your comprehension. Your people have no way to fight back. I can't leave you in a safe place, because such a place does not exist. All I can do is give you the tools to fight this thing—because, I assure you, you will have to fight, sooner or later. So…swear your allegiance to the lady, if that is what you wish. She and I are allies. I give you my word that I will provide you and your people with a place to live. I will train any young men who are willing and able to fight this war the way I, and my associates fight it. And when all this is over, I will find you and your people a new world to call your own."  
  
I extended my hand. "Deal?"  
  
The one in the middle eyed me suspiciously. "I think not, sirrah." His voice was steady, although his tone betrayed his underlying nervousness. "Your aspect is not that of one whom we would fain trust with our lives. I know not what hold you have over this fair lady—suffice it to say that if you intend to use it to control us, we will fight you to release her from it."  
  
"Stop." Amalthea's voice had not risen a decibel over its normal volume. Nevertheless, its pure tones dissipated the fog of testosterone clouding the minds of the group of three confronting me, and, I am sorry to say, mine as well. She came over and stood between us. "Stalker is a good man, for all that he looks fell." There was a pause. Then, to my surprise, I felt a small hand slip into my own, gloved fist. I looked down to where our hands were joined.  
  
Amalthea spoke again. "Please, you have to trust him. He only means well for you and your people. What he says is the truth. There is something out there—something you can't fight, not as you are. He can help you, give you weapons, if only you can just trust him." Slowly, she raised our joined hands into the light. The Three Stooges (as I had begun to think of them—I'd even assigned names to each of them) goggled at the sight of her hand in mine. I found myself doing the same thing. Where had that come from?  
  
The Unicorn Lady looked full into the eyes of each of the three men before her. One by one, they failed to meet her gaze. Finally, she spoke. One last argument, one final impassioned plea to those whose fear would undo all that we would create before we had even begun to fight. "Stalker is my friend. I trust him. With my life." Her voice was soft, imploring. "Will you trust him? Will you trust me?"  
  
The one in the middle—Moe, I had designated him as—hung his head. His sword slid back into its scabbard. The others followed suit.  
  
"Aye, milady," he said, "We trust you." He turned to me. "Sir, I owe you an apology." He extended his hand. I felt sorry for him. I could see him flinch as I extended my own hand for him to shake. Was I so terrifying a figure that grown men were afraid of me? Were willing to die rather than trust me? I didn't want to think about that.  
  
"Thank you," I said to him, and held his gaze for a few minutes. A nervous tic developed in his left cheek. What was it that was scaring these people?  
  
"Right," I said finally. "There's still a large number wounded and dying out there. Now we know Amalthea can heal them, I believe we'll be able to save everybody, provided we can get her to them in time. At any rate, it takes a lot of the strain off our medical facilities," and I nodded at the still open door to the sickbay.  
  
"You three are obviously leaders of some sort. Like I said, you'll need to organize your people in order to fight what's going on out there. You three are obviously leaders'' — I indicated their expensive and well- made tack and clothing, and the obviously fine steel of their swords --- "I think you would be the best ones for the job—unless you can think of someone better. While Amalthea's healing them, talk to those of them who're soldiers. Explain to them what we're trying to do here, and sign up anybody who's willing to join." I gave them directions to my quarters. "Meet me there tomorrow morning—there'll probably be a whole mess of things to hammer out before we're truly ready to go. Oh," and I called after them as they turned to go, "if any civilians, including women, offer to join, accept!"  
  
One of Moe's two sidekicks made as if to protest. His leader pulled him back. He bowed slightly, from the waist. "It shall be as you say, sir." He set off down the corridor.  
  
I turned to Amalthea. "Thank you," I said. I meant it, too. Without her help—I wasn't sure what I would have done.  
  
She looked me full in the face. There was fear in her expression—fear and a tightly-held anger that burned all the more fiercely for all that. "You will fight them, won't you?" she asked. "Don't let them escape after killing my people, Stalker, don't!" She hung her head. A single tear escaped from between her tightly closed lids. "I'm all alone now," she moaned.  
  
Damn. The poor girl was still pining for her lost people. There was every possibility that her grief could incapacitate her. I looked around for Raistlin. Gone. The bastard had left me holding the ball. I looked around helplessly for a few minutes, looking for inspiration. Then, I did the first thing that came into my mind.  
  
I hugged her. Tight.  
  
"Listen to me, Amalthea," I rasped into her hair as she sobbed into my chest. "You are not alone. I won't let you be. Raistlin won't let you be." I was putting words into the mage's mouth. I was pretty certain though, that he'd agree with me. "There are fifteen thousand men, women and children on this station who absolutely, with all their might and will, will not allow you to stand alone." I pulled apart from her so I could look into her face. "Hard as it may be for you to accept at first, Hal Jordan transformed you for a reason. A damned good one. I can tell you that he wouldn't have done so if he didn't think it absolutely necessary. I don't exactly know why he did it, but what I've been thinking is that he did it so you wouldn't be the only one of your kind left in the world—that you wouldn't have to be alone like the last time." I took her hands in mine. "We won't let that happen. I promise. You just asked those three to trust me. I'll have to you ask you to trust me. And Raistlin. And everybody else on this station. Can you do that?" I asked her, looking straight into her eyes.  
  
Her "yes" was so soft it was barely audible. A moment later, she said it again, louder and surer than before.  
  
"That's good," I said. I indicated the Stooges, standing a few yards down the corridor, watching us curiously. "They're waiting for you out there, Amalthea. They need you. Don't disappoint them."  
  
She stared at me for a long while, then nodded, and set forth in the wake of the Three Stooges. I allowed myself the luxury of a sigh of relief and turned to go back into the infirmary.  
  
There, leaning against the wall, where he had not been but five seconds before, was Raistlin. He was smirking. Evilly.  
  
"And so the brave knight, having rescued the beautiful Unicorn Princess from the clutches of the evil Chaos Marines, returned her to his castle to rule over their people, whereupon they fell in love…" he declaimed, as if reciting from a badly written romantic epic. "How sad. You seem incapable of escaping a cliché. I would feel for you, if I could."  
  
"You set me up, mage," I growled. "Have you nothing better to do than to put people in embarrassing situations and then making fun of them?"  
  
He raised his hands calmly, as if to ward me off. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," he said.  
  
I briefly considered strangling the man, then thought better of it. What was the point? I stomped off down the corridor, muttering to myself.  
  
"Why couldn't I have had someone friendlier? Like Harry Potter? Yeah, he'd be a lot easier to work with…"  
  
I followed Amalthea as she went around, laying her hands on the wounds of those in need. Far from draining her, she seemed to gain yet more energy each time she drew another victim back from the brink of death. To our immense satisfaction, a goodly proportion was not only willing but eager to join the army we were putting together. They were sworn in by Moe (whose real name, I now found out, was Lew, Prince of the kingdom of Haggard). All told, we had two thousand able and ready warriors, willing to take the battle to the demons who had so viciously torn them from their world, their home, and, in many cases, their families.  
  
Raistlin and I, now considering ourselves under truce for the time being—most likely due to the calming influence of Amalthea—took measures to provide for the clothing, feeding and lodging of thirteen thousand civilians and two thousand assorted military personnel. I had a feeling that a good deal more of our unwitting passengers would wind up serving in our fledgling armed forces—in one capacity or another.  
  
I made several trips to and from food markets across the multiverse, buying up as much food of any kind that I could find. Raistlin found himself busily conjuring up food, piling it up in one of the empty storage bays till it reached to the ceiling.  
  
Late in the day, I began the onerous task of packing away the numerous artifacts I had accumulated over the years. More than anything else, my fortress was a museum. Within its labyrinthine halls I had preserved, under stasis fields, artifacts representing over ten thousand years of human culture. An immense library held every text written by human hands that I'd been able to find. Thousands of music and video recordings were stored in the giant mainframe at the fortress' heart, in a chamber right next to the quantum singularity that powered the fortress' mighty hypertime engines.  
  
As I worked, I found myself overcome by the feeling that my past was irrevocably slipping away from me. I stopped and stared at the relics surrounding me, old pieces that, like all the rest on display in the fortress, were all I had to remind me of the world that I'd once walked upon as a man. A true human I'd been then, neither more nor less than my fellow men. Now….  
  
I raised my gloved fist. A minor act of will, and the quantum armor encasing that fist retracted, revealing pink, well formed flesh. I'd lost that hand in the field, fighting back my country's enemies as they sought to overwhelm my beleaguered comrades. We'd fought a delaying action against overwhelming armored forces. One by one, our vehicles were destroyed, their crews blown apart as tank shell after tank shell found it's mark. Finally, a stray shell had landed not three yards from where we'd dug in, behind the crest of a hill. I'd woken up in the field hospital. Reinforcements had arrived in time to halt the enemy's advance, though not to save my comrades. Years later, after I'd traveled the dimensions for nigh on a century, the hand had grown back.  
  
No. Whatever I was now, the word 'human' most certainly did not describe it. I could form energy-constructs out of sub-atomic particles, fly faster than light, and travel between universes. My punches could crack the crust of a planet. After nearly two centuries navigating the labyrinthine pathways of the Bleed, my grasp of the tortuous mechanics of multiversal space was as instinctive as walking. Mentally as well as physically, I had transcended the limitations of mere humanity and had ascended to superhumanity.  
  
Yet, in the recesses of my heart, in which dwell that which is the true measure of a being, I was a man still. May that always be so.  
  
I shook myself back to the concrete reality that was now the thing I had to confront. My planet was gone, now, destroyed by malicious multiversal beings not long after my ascension. In my other life, I'd been a student of human culture, the unconquerable imperatives that drove a sentient being to put pen to paper, brush to canvas, chisel to stone, in order to shape a thing with those crude tools that would thenceforth be called beautiful by others whose minds had also been shaped by those same imperatives. Standing alone in the ruins of great civilizations, I'd found myself overcome with rage at the thought of thousands of vibrant cultures wiped out, all the things of beauty that now would never see the light of day, because their would-be creators had not lived to see their visions through; all the things of beauty that already existed, now consigned to molder in oblivion, with no one to note the genius of their creators, or the powerful spirit of the species that could produce such things. The museum had been my way of ensuring that no matter what happened, my people, my planet, did not go silently into the dark of night—that somewhere in the cold multiverse, there would still be one place that bore their mark, one place in which they were remembered.  
  
That, in a nutshell, was the reason I was feeling this way. Packing the artifacts away would be like burying what I had left of my past. An illogical feeling, that, but, humanity has ever been an illogical species. I took comfort in that last thought. In my heart of hearts, I was still human.  
  
I finished crating a stack of paintings and stood up. No matter the fate of my collection, my past was my own, and would always remain mine. My feelings notwithstanding, no amount of packing away or even discarding would ever change that. Good.  
  
After crating the contents of a small complex of twisting corridors and quiet rooms, I went to find Raistlin. My thoughts during the packing, and my observations of Amalthea while we were providing aid to the refugees, had brought to my mind two things that I would have to tell him about.  
  
Which was why, long after Amalthea had healed every wounded soul aboard the fortress, long after the last of the fifteen thousand refugees had been settled into temporary quarters, pending the assignment of permanent living space, Raistlin and I sat facing each other in the two easy chairs in my quarters, drinks in our hands and each eying the other suspiciously. Neither of us felt entirely certain of the other at that point of time. Having caught the sharp end of Raistlin's tongue more than once already, I was understandably not eager to face it again, should he choose to unloose it. Raistlin, on the other hand, having felt the effects of the zone of accord that seemed to follow Amalthea around like a cloud of fine perfume, was probably unsure in his mind as to how to respond to my presence. I could not but smile at this. I could understand his confusion.  
  
"I suppose you're wondering why I've asked for this meeting. I understand that any one who's been on the receiving end of your tongue would want to avoid you altogether. I don't mean any offense here; I'm just trying to be frank." I took a sip of my whiskey, then continued before he took the opportunity to say something. "I don't have that option here. We've both been put into positions of responsibility, and because of those responsibilities, we're honor-bound to work together in order to put a stop to the Cancer. That means that for the time being, I'll have to put up with you. Of course, that also means you'll have to put up with me. Can you do that?"  
  
"It seems I have little choice in the matter," he said, with a nonchalant shrug. "I still do not entirely trust you, however. I have found distrust to be a wise policy in the past—I do not intend to change now."  
  
"I swear I will not betray you. Our enterprise can not succeed if each of us is too busy looking over his shoulder for the other one about to stab him in the back."  
  
"So you say," he replied. His eyes bored into mine, like those of a snake about to strike. "Yet too little is known about you. As I said before, you are an enigma. Only Hal Jordan and Jackson King can claim any knowledge about you as a person—Jordan is still not fully trusted after his last attempt to rewrite history, and King is suspect as well. Thus, you have no one to vouch for you. As to whence you came, and what you are doing, all we have are rumors, vague sightings from afar on the field of battle. What do I know of your motives, your actions throughout the years? Nothing. My logic is simple: I do not know I can trust you, because it is impossible for me to know."  
  
I struggled to keep a lid on my temper. For two hundred years I had fought a war without end against dark gods, sinister conquerors from beyond time, twisted, hate-maddened creatures whose only pleasure was to destroy. I had saved countless lives in my time, seen innumerable sights. Did this man presume to question my good intentions, I, who had done these things? "I would think the fact that I haven't tried to conquer any universes would speak for any intentions I might have," I managed to say, in an approximately normal tone of voice that was a considerable effort to maintain.  
  
He shrugged. "There are other means to power, as one as obviously intelligent as you should now."  
  
I gave a bitter laugh. "You think I'm motivated by power? Is that it?" I laughed again, louder this time. "Nothing could be further from the truth. If I have at all involved myself in the affairs of others, it was always to ensure that they remain safe from what they can not fight."  
  
"Perhaps," he replied. "Yet my colleague, Doctor Strange, has also spoken of a man who makes the same claim. You may have heard of him.  
  
"His name is Doom"  
  
I couldn't help it. I began laughing out loud. Doom! This man was comparing me to Doom! Of all people, Doom! Doom the megalomaniac, Doom the supervillain, Doom the wannabe god! My fingers closed reflexively on the upholstered armrests of my chair. There was a ripping sound as the upholstery shredded in my hands.  
  
That brought me to my senses. I'd learned long ago to keep a short leash on my stronger emotions. Rage, extreme mirth, hysteria; these could cause a man to lose control over his own actions. In the very first days after I'd acquired my powers, I'd walked the multiverse, seeking out men of power. Superman. The High. Divis Mal. Men whose fists could shatter mountains, whose muscles could shift moons from their orbits. Observing these mighty men, one thing had struck me. These men projected calm, a sort of emotional serenity that not even a nuclear explosion would disturb. They moved as if aware of the dire consequences the slightest false move on their part could have. Perhaps that was part of their allure, the strange charisma that enabled them to enchant millions: the adoring fans, the comrades who admired and respected them as the greatest of their number—even the cults which sprang like mushrooms about them.  
  
Whatever effect it may have had on those around them, this calm arose from the awareness of these men of the power each of them held. Hence, they cultivated their minds in order to minimize the impact of intense emotions. Even enwrapped in the flames of rage, the joys of orgasm, their control over their powers was absolute.  
  
I had made every attempt to organize my own mental landscape on the model offered me by these great men, once it became clear that my abilities would approach theirs in magnitude. So far, in the main I had succeeded. Yet the events of the past few days—the lack of rest, the destruction of a world that I had held dear and the transformation of an old and dear friend into a form totally unfamiliar to her—had eroded my control till it was paper thin in places. So, now I was hysterical. Not a good thing, that.  
  
"You cannot be serious," I choked, still trying to force down the mindless burble that threatened to work its way up my windpipe from my lungs. "I'm sorry," I continued, getting myself under control again. "It's just that—comparing me to Doom…" I let loose one last laugh, a short, sharp bark that held little mirth. "I'm sorry. I'm hysterical. Heh. Look, I don't know how I can convince you of my good intentions." A crazy thought came to me, shining in the darkness of my tired mind like the first glimmerings of dawn. Or maybe it was the ominous glow of a melted down nuclear reactor. "Hey, maybe if I told you why I'm doing all this, where I come from, how I got my powers and all that, you'll trust me a bit more. It's only fair. After all, I know a great deal more about you than you do about me."  
  
He leaned forward, an avid expression on his face. "Ah." That sound seemed, on several levels, to convey an immense satisfaction. "Tell me, then. What was it? What made you what you are today? What story brought you here, out to the void between the worlds? Does it resonate in the minds of children of all ages, in universes as far removed from yours as yours is for mine?" The corners of his mouth turned upwards, exposing his teeth in a grin. "Oh, don't be surprised. I know all about fame, and what can happen when you acquire it. Was I one of your childhood heroes then, back when you were but a grub, a drone amongst other drones, struggling to break free of your drudgery, to become more than what you were?" Without waiting for an answer he stood and crossed to the bookshelves lining the far side of the room. I got up and followed him, wondering how I'd allowed myself to get sucked onto this strange side-track, and how I might get our conversation back on the lines on which I'd intended it to run.  
  
Quickly, the mage scanned the shelves. Hundreds of books stood, arrayed like the ranks of an army upon those metal planes. "Yes," he said, pulling out a copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight.  
  
"Now," he said, holding the book, "tell."  
  
"Hold on, pal." I held up a hand to forestall him. "I've got some things to say first—at least, I would have said them if you hadn't hijacked the conv--"  
  
There was a noise from the door to the sleeping quarters. Amalthea was standing there, looking wide-eyed at the two of us.  
  
Even as she was, clad in one of my spare robes that was much too large for her, she was beautiful—and vulnerable. Her snowy skin shone in the darkened room like a beacon in the night, lighting the way for the weary traveler as he struggles toward safety, like—I shook my head, trying to clear it. This was not the time to let my mind become even more befogged than it already was.  
  
"I couldn't sleep," she said, as Raistlin took her by the arm and led her to a chair. "I'm sorry." Her voice was but a whisper, barely audible from where I was standing. She looked at me. Even had she not had the…special advantage that I was beginning to suspect she had…the look on her face might well have melted my heart even so. "It's not working. I can't stop thinking about those people out there. You're wrong. They're…they're nothing like me!" This last came out as a despairing wail. "I can feel them! All they want to do is adore me! That's all!"  
  
Raistlin knelt beside her. "Little one, what exactly do you mean?"  
  
"She's an empath. A projective empath, to be precise."  
  
Raistlin stiffened in shock. His eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. "Yes," he said. "Yes. This explains everything." He turned back to Amalthea. "You can feel what they feel, can't you, little one? Their joy…their fear…everything. Their emotions are your emotions."  
  
She nodded.  
  
"And you can project emotions into other people's minds," he went on. "This is very dangerous, little one. Do you know what you're playing with?"  
  
"I don't think she knows she's doing it. Her projective empathy seems to be on all the time. I sure you've noticed the effects. Everyone reacts positively towards her. Negative emotions just…disappear. That's what happened to the two of us, that time. And to Prince Lew and his two friends. She just doesn't have control. At least, not yet."  
  
Very slowly, Raistlin sat in the other chair. He eyed the Unicorn Lady warily. "Dangerous indeed," he muttered. "What do we do, now?"  
  
"She'll have to be trained I suppose. You don't happen to have any experience with psionics, do you?"  
  
He shook his head  
  
"As it happens, I do know of a person who might be able to train her—or at the very least, contain her." Following Raistlin's example a few minutes earlier, I knelt before the chair. "I'm sorry, Amalthea. As Raistlin says, your powers are dangerous. Maybe even too dangerous for us to ever be able to let you keep them at all. If worst comes to worst, we may even have to have someone take control of you." That last sentence was the hardest thing I'd ever said in my life. It was almost impossible to stand there, look that beautiful woman in the face, and tell her that because of what she could do, we would be forced to take away one of the most wondrous things she possessed—maybe even her free will.  
  
She just stared at me, her eyes brimming with her heart's pain. "I don't want to hurt anybody," she whispered. "Please, do what you must." It broke my heart to see her like that. Or was it just her empathy?  
  
I'd think a lot less of myself if it was, indeed, the latter.  
  
"We'll see," was all I said.  
  
I stood up and face the mage. "Actually, I think this covers what I was going to say, before we were interrupted." I took a deep breath, then let it out, noisily. "I suppose the only thing we can do now is carry on. Amalthea is not a monster, though her abilities may make her seem that way to others—even more so than you or I. I'm all for the three of us getting some rest now. It's been a long day, and we've all got work to do tomorrow."  
  
"Oh, no," said the mage. "I believe you still owe me a story…"  
  
"You're not going to let that go are you?" I sighed. The last of the adrenaline jolt to my brain upon Amalthea's entrance was fading. "Well, I suppose that if I lose control while I'm talking, you'll be able to get a close look at my psyche." I gestured at one of the chairs. "Make yourself comfortable. Amalthea? Would you like to stay?"  
  
She nodded  
  
"Right, then." I crossed to the bar, poured myself another whiskey, the better to wet my lips, and began to tell them of my origin. 


	5. A New Ally

Gingerly, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Galactic Navy, and the force behind the resurgence of the Empire after many hard defeats in its ongoing war with the New Republic, reached out and attempted to touch the face of the Noghri assassin whose knife was at that moment buried up to the hilt within his chest.  
  
Instead of encountering the stocky alien's sandpapery skin, his fingers passed right through, as if the space in front of him, which should have contained a short, fast, and extremely deadly killer, was instead totally empty.  
  
Thrawn's eyes widened, the malevolent red glow within them seeming to flare up as they did so. He glanced down at his chest. Where there should have been a deadly wound, there was-nothing. The knife merely appeared to enter his chest, right at the point where his heart was supposed to be. Experimentally, he felt his chest round where the dagger was embedded. Sure enough, he found the weapon as insubstantial as its owner had been.  
  
Cautiously, he arose, his body passing through that of the still- motionless Noghri. Like his assailant, the officers on the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera were strangely unmoving, frozen in the various positions they had occupied when whatever had happened, happened. At the side of his chair, Pellaeon, his flag captain, still stood, engrossed in the tactical display. And in the chair-  
  
Thrawn hissed and recoiled. Sitting in the chair was himself, face twisted in a rictus of agony, a bright blossom of blood starting out upon his white uniform jacket where the Noghri had stabbed him.  
  
Once more, he looked round. Save for the strange motionlessness of the inhabitants of the bridge, everything appeared normal. Experimentally, he attempted to touch Pellaeon. Just as they had with the Noghri, his fingers passed through the other man without encountering any resistance at all.  
  
Thrawn looked once more at the dead man in the chair. His mind was racing, as he considered in turn one explanation after another, then rejected them.  
  
Finally, he arrived at a conclusion that, at first glance seemed so utterly improbable, that went so much against the tenets of his people and his rational training that his mind rebelled against it, even as he accepted it as the only logical explanation.  
  
He was dead.  
  
The Chiss were not normally a superstitious folk. Eons ago, long before their civilization had even begun to take its first faltering steps towards spaceflight, their philosophers had rejected outright the concept of any form of afterlife. In place of religion, they had proposed a code of conduct based partly on Darwinian principles and partly upon socialist philosophy. Each individual's first and foremost duty was to see to the continuance of his genes-yet, due to the long-established tradition of intermarriage between members of the great houses to which every Chiss belonged to, at least a portion of the genes of any one Chiss would also belong to a large proportion of the Chiss race as a whole. Therefore, any individual who furthered the cause of the survival of the race as a whole would also ensure that his genes would survive in some form to the next generation, even if he perished in the attempt without having reproduced first. Thus, by extension, the first duty of each and every Chiss was to aid the preservation of the Chiss race, and to that end, they were to take on whatever duties necessary to sustain their civilization.  
  
Coming as it had on the heels of a devastating religious conflict, this new philosophy had been embraced wholeheartedly by an overwhelming majority of the Chiss race. Those who remained loyal to the old ways within the span of a few decades found themselves marginalized, utterly irrelevant to the forward-looking, vigorous new society that had sprung, phoenix-like from the ashes of the old after the war.  
  
Perhaps, in some dim and distant past, as the Chiss race clawed its way out of the darkness of savagery and animalism and into the clear light of sentience, such traits had been crucial to the survival of the race as a whole, thus ensuring that individuals possessing such traits would pass them on to the next generation, and predisposing their distant descendants to the adoption of this new philosophy. Or perhaps the leaders of the race were more honest and more committed to the new ways than to their own enrichment than was the norm among other races throughout the galaxy, and hence less prone to finding ways of subverting the new system than others. Whatever the reason, for hundreds of years afterward, the Chiss, driven by the tenets of their new creed, became mighty among the hundreds of star nations in the region of their galaxy which they had inhabited.  
  
Among his folk, Thrawn was a rare soul; years of travel among the races of a galaxy vast and teeming with sentient life had convinced him that the true legacy of a race was not its genes, but the ideas and ideals with which they faced a vast and uncaring world-and, to Grand Admiral Thrawn, the number of races inhabiting the vast galactic spiral whose ideals, to him, were not only worth preserving but worth propagating, was as great as that of the stars themselves. On his travels, he had admired the stern sense of honor of the Wookies of Kasshyyyk; the artistry and sheer sense of beauty with which the natives of the watery planet Calamari Prime imbued their many wondrous technological creations; the Corellians' ability to laugh in the face of overwhelming odds; and the stern warrior traditions of the Twi'leks of the desert planet Ryloth. All these and more had stirred in the admiral's heart a deep respect, and an intense desire not to allow these beings to be dragged down into the darkness.  
  
Yet, as much as the many years of galactic journeying had changed the admiral, he still retained the dour and unemotional aspect of his race. And, as much as, over the years, he had had the existence of powers greater than even the advanced science of the Empire could explain demonstrated to him, like all his folk, the admiral still remained skeptical. Thus, it was with an immense misgiving that he finally reached his conclusion. Even then, a long-buried portion of his mind still howled resistance, still cried, "No! This is all wrong! This should not be happening!" Irked, he pushed it down, and tried to concentrate on his current situation.  
  
He stomped his feet. The sound of his heavy boot soles hitting the deck reassured him. It meant that he could at least interact somewhat with his environment. Experimentally, he took hold of the chair in which his doppelganger sat and tried to turn it about. The seat turned easily in his grasp, while his double remained still in the same position he had occupied all this while. As the real admiral had, the chair passed through the fake admiral as it swiveled, as if the other man were not there. It was strange, seeing himself seated upon nothing with a knife in his chest. The almost surreal quality of the scene became even more pronounced.  
  
Thrawn straightened. Now for the final test. He strode towards the door leading to the antechamber to the bridge. Pausing at the pad, he took out his officer's key and pointed it at a sensor. His fingers pressed a button on the silver cylinder. There was a beeping sound, and a metal plate slid aside, revealing a numeric keypad. Swiftly, Thrawn entered his personal code into the machine.  
  
The door slid open.  
  
Waiting behind the door was a man. Unlike the others, he did not seem to be a phantom, frozen in time and space at the moment of Thrawn's death. Indeed, as the door opened, he nodded at the admiral, as if in greeting  
  
"Grand Admiral Thrawn. Good day."  
  
Thrawn's right eyebrow rose. On first awakening in this afterlife, surrounded by incorporeal shadows of his crew, he had expected to be alone, possibly forever. The Chimaera was not a new ship-she was the veteran of various campaigns over the years against pirates, alien invaders, and the Rebel Alliance. On several instances, she had taken hits to the bridge, and men had died there. Thrawn had not seen these men, and thus was not expecting to meet anyone. Seeing another soul, therefore, in this most unlikely of places, came as a pleasant surprise.  
  
He nodded at the man. "Good day," he said. Any other man, thrust unwilling and unaware into such a situation, might have panicked, bombarding the stranger with half-hysterical queries, demands and imprecations, but not Thrawn. He was of the Chiss, and his people were made of sterner stuff. Instead, he kept his voice calm, controlled, though he did shift his weight slightly, as if preparing for combat. He did not anticipate it, armed though the stranger was with a strange blade by his side, nor did he estimate his chances highly, should they be put to the test. Yet the stranger did not appear hostile, and besides, he was already dead, so what point to killing him all over again?  
  
"I would assume that my current predicament was at least partially engineered by yourself," he continued. "Mister."  
  
"I'm called Stalker by my associates," replied the man in answer to the implied question. "I'm impressed, Admiral. You seem to be taking this rather calmly."  
  
"My people have a saying," replied the Admiral. "'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.'" He gestured round the bridge. "It is plainly impossible for the Rebels, no matter what scientific advances they may have made, to generate an illusion like this through technological means. There are ysalamiri mounted on most of the chairs in this room-more than enough to block the entire volume of the bridge off from the Force. In any case, the only two Jedi of requisite ability that I know of are on Wayland. Thus, what I am experiencing now is, in all likelihood, not a Force-illusion. In the command chair is a doppelganger of myself, with the knife of my Noghri bodyguard embedded in his chest. The only possible explanations for this current situation are that either I am dead, or I am experiencing a pre-fatal out-of-body experience. Both cases amount to virtually the same thing." He regarded the other man coolly, trying to gauge his response.  
  
"Your presence here," he continued, "would indicate that you are in fact an agent of the afterlife-I did not meet any shades of former crewmen when I awoke-which I would have were they bound to this location. True," he shrugged, "there was a significant possibility that I would remain eternally bound to this location and time-however, your appearance eliminates it."  
  
Stalker's eyebrows rose. "I am impressed," he said once more. "Your reputation as a thinker is hardly exaggerated." He stepped through the doorway. "May I sit?" he asked, gesturing to one of the chairs on the bridge. "It might take some time to explain my purposes in contacting you."  
  
Thrawn glanced at the bridge behind him. Nearly every chair was occupied- though, in this otherland, it probably didn't matter anyway. He nodded.  
  
The strange man strode to one of the bridge chairs, spun it around, and settled his weight into it, ignoring the incorporeal ensign occupying it. Thrawn took the one next to him.  
  
Stalker began to speak. He told a strange and highly improbable story, of a war being fought on a higher plane of reality than any of the civilizations currently inhabiting the galaxy. He spoke of the beings who even now were fighting that war, in as many different universes as there were stars in the galaxy: men and women with godlike powers, world conquerors, scientists, explorers, and individuals who referred to themselves as "superheroes". He himself was one, or so he claimed. He told Thrawn of the nebulous "enemy" they fought, a "cancer" as he named it, a region of rogue space in which all laws of existence had gone awry, twisting the normal course of events in every universe it encountered to its own advantage, until all spiraled down into a cesspit of anarchy and entropy, and the forces of Chaos itself held sway.  
  
Lastly, he spoke of his own part in the fight, and, more importantly, the band of allies he was gathering whose skills and abilities, in addition to his own, might stem the tide which even now was threatening to inundate the multiverse entire with blood, death and destruction.  
  
"Extraordinary men and women, Admiral," he said. "People who are the best there are at what they do: fighter pilots, snipers and soldiers. Even a telepath and a magician, strange though that may seem to you.  
  
"And you as well," he continued. "The greatest tactical mind in a thousand universes. There are more than just us, the extraordinary ones, caught up in this. Recently, an inhabited planet in an out of the way universe was destroyed. Me and my associates were able to evacuate the planet-at least, what was left of the population after they had gotten through with it." His voice caught, during that last sentence, barely perceptible except perhaps to the alert ears of Thrawn. Did he detect a trace of grief, well hidden? Some one he'd cared about, perhaps? Thrawn filed the information away for further use, just in case.  
  
"They are a people adrift, Admiral. Before the disaster, they had barely entered the Industrial Age-and now they are caught up in this war between forces and beings they can barely comprehend. Can you imagine what it must be like for them?" He gestured toward the unmoving figure of Thrawn's former bodyguard, standing over the corpse of his doppelganger. "Just like the Noghri, uplifted from primitive tribalism directly into the space age. Like it or not, they are irrevocably affected by this."  
  
His eyes bored into Thrawn's. "I know, Admiral. I know what you used those little bastards for-and I know how you got them in the first place." His voice was cold. Thrawn could feel the disapproval radiating from the other man almost like a physical force, pushing him back into his chair. He squared his shoulders, meeting the other man's gaze and sitting up a little straighter in his chair.  
  
"My purposes required that they be used in such fashion, Mr.Stalker," he replied, the chill in his voice matching that used by the self-proclaimed "superhero". "The unification of the galaxy is essential for its long term survival-"  
  
Stalker raised a hand to forestall him. "I know about your purposes. If it's any comfort, the information you've gathered, and that little band you've gathered in that out of the way fortress, will prove essential in defeating the Yuuzhan Vong. I may not agree with your methods, but I do know what your original intent in joining the Empire was, as evil as Palpatine and Vader may have been. Trust me, the Vong will be defeated. I know this."  
  
Thrawn did not relax. If this stranger was going to invade his bridge and lecture him on the moral propriety of the actions he'd taken-well, he would have none of it.  
  
"My point is," the other continued, speaking quickly as if he feared interruption, "that these people find themselves forced to fight. But they have no training, no experience of war in the spheres in which we move. That's why I called upon you. They need a leader and a teacher, someone who can show them how to handle themselves. You're known to be both. Would you rather they be thrown on the largesse of beings so much higher than them that they are effectively gods? That scenario has not produced the best of outcomes, where it has come to pass."  
  
"Thus you wish me to train these people in the arts of war," replied Thrawn, coolly "Strange that you would ask me, whose methods you so disapprove of."  
  
The Stalker shook his head, wearily. "Your methods I may not agree with-at least concerning the matter of the Noghri. The important thing is that you stepped up to the challenge of protecting this galaxy. You elected to stand against the Vong, when the task could easily have been left to another. You forsook your home, your family, in order to safeguard the lives of hundreds of billions of sentient beings, many of whom you've never met.  
  
"You could have died, alone on your quest, surrounded not by friends but by humans hostile to you and all not their kind. You have died. Yet still you found it all worthwhile, to go out there into the dark and cast your defiance into the teeth of those who would deprive uncounted billions of their lives, of their very right to live. For those lives, you found it worthwhile to sully yourself, doing the work of scum like the Emperor and Darth Vader-no, Admiral," he continued, as Thrawn made as if to rise from his seat and walk away, "do not regard me so angrily-"  
  
Thrawn cut him off in mid-sentence. "I gave my oath as an officer," he said, allowing a hint of anger to creep into his voice. "Do not expect me, sir, to sit idly and listen to you slander the one to whom I gave it."  
  
Stalker regarded him in silence awhile with surprised eyes. After a few, awkward moments, he spoke.  
  
"I humbly apologize, Admiral. I did not mean to impugn your oath. I know very well that such as you would never foreswear yourself in the slightest detail, even to begrudge in the slightest those to whom you swore-though you did, on such occasions where the opportunity arose, use it to further your own ends. But never foresworn, Admiral, and never would I name you as such."  
  
To this, Thrawn did not reply. Instead, he nodded, stiffly. He would accept the apology-for now. Let the other offer but the slightest further insult however.  
  
"Yet consider, Admiral Thrawn," the strange man continued, "by any moral standard, can the actions of the Emperor, and of Darth Vader, in any way be called 'good'? Did either of them, at any time, intentionally and altruistically act for the benefit of any other being? I ask this of you, Admiral, as a hypothetical disinterested observer, not as an officer of the Imperial Navy."  
  
Thrawn stared at him a few moments. At length, he spoke.  
  
"No," he replied, shortly. It was all he could say. By any objective standard, both men had been evil-they had lied, burned and slaughtered their way to power in a galaxy desperate for order in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. It was the truth, pure and simple. Not even his oath of loyalty to the Emperor could make him deny it.  
  
"Yet you found it all worthwhile." Stalker's voice was soft, low, wheedling.  
  
"I do not regret it, no," replied Thrawn, returning the other man's gaze. He had done what was necessary, and did it well; that was all any Chiss needed to do.  
  
"And now, you are being called to even greater responsibility." Stalker sighed. "More lives are at risk here than just one galaxy-or even one universe. Are you, Admiral, willing to stand by and see billions of souls dragged screaming into the abyss? Or will you cast your defiance into the teeth of this threat, just as you have cast it into the teeth of the Vong?"  
  
Thrawn looked around the bridge, taking in the still figures, the battle frozen in an instant within the holotank outside the ship, the two figures that still stood, unmoving, over his command chair.  
  
"I hardly suppose you could send me back," he said.  
  
The other man smiled, a trifle sourly. "Hardly. I found it necessary to petition the Presence Himself for permission just to do this-and my powers certainly do not extend to bringing the dead back to life."  
  
"The Presence?"  
  
"The One Above All.the Almighty.God. All names with which we refer to the Creator of the multiverse."  
  
"So such a being exists? You have met him?"  
  
Stalker shook his head. "I have met several who were His agents, and yet more who claimed to have seen Him, but never have I had the opportunity to gaze upon Him myself."  
  
Thrawn rubbed his chin. "So you say." He turned to look out the window. Outside, the contending fleets had vanished. The black of space had been replaced by a brilliantly coruscating sea of crimson energy, suffusing the now darkened bridge with its blood-red light. Around them, the motionless figures of the Star Destroyer's crew seemed to Thrawn to have become yet more immaterial. They were barely visible now. He turned to the other man.  
  
"Is this your doing?" he asked.  
  
Stalker's face was grim. "We are moving into the Bleed," he said. "It is the void between worlds, the gateway to higher realms. Choose quickly, Admiral. Soon, the gatherer of souls will arrive to take you to your fate. You have but a little time left to avoid it, and perhaps by your actions win yourself a better one than what you must go to today."  
  
Thrawn stood. He felt the loss of all he had worked for: the fleets waiting in the Unknown regions; the millions of warriors he had trained, all of them willing to spill their life's blood in the defense of their home galaxy. What would become of them after he was gone, he wondered. There was always the clone, but even one's clone, imprinted with the very essence of one's psyche, could prove radically different from the original. He could not rest easy not knowing if the work he'd started here would go on.  
  
"Stalker," he said. "The Vong. Tell me this, Stalker: will they be defeated? Will the races of the galaxy realize in time what they face?"  
  
The other man nodded. "They will-though it will be the Republic that claims the victory and not the Empire. Be at ease, Thrawn; your work has not been in vain."  
  
The admiral turned. The relief was almost too great to bear. For well over twenty years, he had fought this war, preparing the galaxy for a threat it had not known was there. To know now for certain that that fight was over, that he could now turn his burden over to someone else.  
  
And yet.Thrawn looked at Stalker. If the stranger was to be believed, there was yet another war imminent-one in which the battleground was infinitely larger and the stakes, infinitely larger. And this man, who wore a strange costume and told an even stranger tale-this man believed in him, believed that he, whose only weapon was his mind, had a part to play among this pantheon of gods which he spoke of-believed that his mind would be able to win through where strange powers and telepathy and magic, though he could scarce credit it, had failed. And it seemed to Thrawn that the burden was even heavier and the responsibility even more crushing-and he knew that he had no choice.  
  
"I will go," he said, and the future stretched out before him like a road never ending. Perhaps when this was over, he would be able to rest. Till then, he would fight the good fight, and never look back.  
  
Stalker stood, and clasped him on the shoulder. The bridge shimmered away, and it seemed as if they stood unprotected amidst the crimson energies of the Bleed.  
  
"I understand, Admiral. Look, there is my fortress," and he pointed to a great globe of steel, fifteen miles across, it surface unnaturally smooth. Beside it, a great starship of unusual design floated. "And there is the SDF-3 beside it. It belongs to allies of mine," he said, in response to Thrawn's quizzical expression, "the Robotech Expeditionary Force, lately discovered wandering the Bleed. We have agreed to work together awhile, and when this conflict is over, I have committed myself to finding them a way back to their home plane." He laughed. "You find yourself in strange company, Admiral. Come, we go to meet your new comrades!"  
  
And he floated off towards the immense, gray sphere, and bemused, Thrawn followed. And in his heart, the Admiral wondered if this time, the burden would not prove to be so hard after all. 


	6. Champions!

There it sat, lying flaccidly across a plate set in front of her. Meat. A raw steak, red and bloody still from having been torn fresh from the carcass of a once-living being. An animal. Whatever that piece of meat's former owner had been, it had also been a sentient, living creature, with thoughts, hopes, a soul to call its own. So thought the Lady Amalthea, the woman who once had been the Last Unicorn, as she gazed horrified at the thing sitting before her. After centuries of living in an enchanted forest, she had created a strange kind of rapport with the dumb creatures sharing the wood with her. Too, her presence had shaped the creatures of the wood into something more than what they had been, until they too became sentient; innocent souls dwelling in a lesser Paradise.  
  
And now-and now she stood, horror-struck, in the middle of a great fortress of steel, floating somewhere in a trackless void, far from anything she could call familiar, any place she could call home. Her gaze rose, slowly, to meet that of her host. Stalker. He referred to himself as an adventurer, and, in those days before everything she'd known had been torn away from her by forces she barely understood, he would come, every once in a while, to rest spirit and body both in the presence of the beautiful, wonderful unicorn herd. More specifically, he would come to her, and in the shade of the tall trees that spread their branches over the brook by which she lived, they would talk together of the things they each had seen and done. He had seemed to find a peace in the wood; a sense that, there more than anyplace else, he was home.  
  
Amalthea had never truly understood the nature of Stalker's work. He would speak of tyrants overthrown, of people saved from monsters and enemy invasions. Not until the horrors had come to her own world, however, had Amalthea fully comprehended the terrible scope of the menaces Stalker faced. To her, he now stank of endless brutality, of terrible deeds done in the name of the innocent. And now.  
  
He expected her to join him in his crusade, that was certain. He had said, barely days before, that her abilities would prove useful in his campaign against the forces of darkness he claimed threatened all reality. Was she then only a tool for him? Her gaze crept up to meet his own.  
  
He was staring at her, a concerned look on his face. All her doubts faded as his emotions flooded through her consciousness. For a moment, she saw herself as he saw her, a beautiful creature pulled out of her depth by forces beyond her control. There was pity for her in him; pity and a vast ineffable sadness that, once again, innocence had to be destroyed. And- there was something else. A vague sort of discomfort. He still thought of her as a friend; in fact, his only friend in the world entire. And yet-  
  
He felt attracted to her! So that was why he was feeling so uncomfortable around her! For almost a hundred and fifty years, they had been the best of friends. Now, they were still friends-but he saw her as something more as well. In the space of a single day she had been thrown, unasked-for, entirely on his mercy, and then been transformed from a beast of legend into a beautiful woman. She felt her cheeks flush as she realized how he felt for her-and how those feelings were so obviously difficult for him to deal with.  
  
"Amalthea?" She started at the sound of her name.  
  
"Yes?" she replied.  
  
"I'm, ah, sorry I had to show you this," he said, gesturing at the plate.  
  
That again. She suppressed a shudder as she looked at the steak.  
  
"Do you feel anything?" asked Stalker. In the days since her transformation, he had been working on defining the exact limits of her powers, putting her through test after test. None of them had been painful, and after the first few days, had helped her take her mind off the fact that she was no longer what she had been, but still.  
  
Was this another test, she wondered. She had discovered, days earlier, that she could sense the psychic residue of an event, sometimes weeks or even years after the event itself had taken place. He had taken her to a place that had once been called "Alderaan", a desolate field of giant rocks floating in space. The stench of death there had almost overpowered her. Stalker had brought her back unconscious in his arms. She'd spent the next few days in bed, recuperating from the horrid experience. Was he trying to repeat that experiment, only on a smaller scale?  
  
She leaned over the plate, opening her empathic senses to the horrible thing. Why had Stalker chosen such a cruel way of testing her abilities?  
  
Her eyes widened. She bent all her thought towards the thing on the plate, attempting to seek out the slightest trace of the intense last moments of the life that had once inhabited it.  
  
Nothing. Her powers, which had been able to detect the death-scream of an entire planet more than a quarter-century after that event took place, which were able to pick up the slightest nuances of emotion from the minds of those around her, failed completely to pick up any psychic trace around that piece of meat.  
  
Stalker must have seen the confusion on her face. "It's vat grown," he said, as if by way of explanation. "Here, let me show you." He turned, motioning for her to follow, and led her to a large steel door. They were deep in the bowels of the Hypertime fortress, surrounded by immense and incomprehensible engines that Stalker claimed were vital to the operation of his vast citadel. The door slid open.  
  
Beyond, bank upon bank of glowing cylinders stood, filled to the brim with a churning, bubbling fluid. Strange, tubular devices hung from solid- looking seals capping the top of each cylinder. And at the end of each tube.  
  
Bulging, shapeless lumps hung, bobbing flaccidly in the greenish fluid like obscene fruits. Even from where she was, Amalthea could easily identify the lumps for what they were-gobbets of meat, growing steadily within the vats towards a grisly harvest.  
  
Almost despite herself, Amalthea felt her gorge rise. She clapped a slender hand to her lips as the contents of her stomach fought to return to whence they came.  
  
Stalker's eyes widened. Moving swiftly, he took hold of Amalthea's slim arm and drew her out from the chamber of vats. A swift gesture of his hand before the sensor plate, and the heavy door slid shut with a sigh.  
  
A dull black bucket materialized inches before the heaving Amalthea's face. She grabbed at it, just moments before her last meal erupted forth from her mouth. When she looked up, Stalker was watching her, a look of contrition on his face.  
  
"Amalthea. I'm sorry. Really. I-I didn't expect that to happen. I just wanted to show you-"  
  
The remorse issuing forth from his psyche as he fumbled for the correct words hit her with almost brutal force. So horrifying, that experience had been, and yet-and yet, she couldn't really bring herself to blame him. He seemed to have been genuinely horrified at her reaction. No. She couldn't blame him. Not without hearing his reasons for bringing her to that.place first.  
  
"Why?" she gasped.  
  
Stalker hung his head. "This-" he said, "all this is supposed to go to feeding the refugees." He looked up at her again. There were grim lines of worry etched upon his brow and at the corners of his mouth. "I needed you to know. With your powers-your past-the potential for misunderstanding, for something happening which could have caused who knows how much damage to our people, would have been too great." He sighed. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Yes," she agreed. "You are. I know you are." She closed her eyes, shuddering at the thought of all those.things growing inside that chamber. She felt sick, just thinking about it.  
  
Stalker came over and helped her to her feet. Gingerly, she brushed her fingers across her lips, grimacing as she felt the wetness of fresh vomit. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. So this was what vomiting felt like. If ever there was a sign that she was now irrevocably human, this was it.  
  
Stalker reached a hand into a hidden recess somewhere inside his cape and pulled out a white handkerchief.  
  
"Here." He stretched out his hand, offering the tiny square of fabric to her.  
  
"Thank you," said Amalthea. She smiled gratefully at her longtime friend.  
  
He smiled back. "I didn't do too well with that, did I?" he asked, rather ruefully.  
  
She considered him for one long moment before replying. "No," she said, as she shook her head. "No. I don't suppose you did. But you felt you had to do it. And you did it." She cast a swift glance in the direction of the now-closed door. "I don't like it. It seems so strange. So unnatural." She sighed. "And yet it's not some innocent creature who's being slaughtered for the consumption of human beings, just some lumps of meat that were never alive. I think-" She stood there, looking at him for the longest time. "Thank you."  
  
And she put her arms around him and drew him close, resting her head upon his shoulder. Moments later, she felt his arms come up-tentatively, ever so tentatively-and hug her back.  
  
Seconds later she drew back. She smiled, gratefully, at her friend, and then, ever so swiftly, leaned in towards him and kissed him on the cheek, before turning and walking away, leaving him standing there in the midst of all the equipment and strange machines, watching her go with his hand to the spot she'd kissed.  
  
So. Maybe she was human, she thought as she walked. But she had friends, friends like Stalker, and Raistlin as well. They cared for her, even though Stalker might fumble like he just had and Raistlin would occasionally be impatient and acerbic. But they were her friends, and she knew that they cared. And maybe, just maybe, though she would grieve, even to the end of her life, for the beautiful creature she'd been, she could try, for their sakes, and the sake of all those people who lived because of her, to be, once and for all time, the person they needed her to be.  
  
Human.  
  
Thrawn was in the hanger bay, watching the fighters coming in. Odd machines-they looked almost like throwbacks to air-breathing gas turbine- powered atmospheric craft. They certainly seemed capable enough in deep space, though, and, to his practiced eye, the pilots seemed to maneuver their craft in to land with almost uncanny precision.  
  
Well, now, he thought, mentally cracking his knuckles. This would be the fleet he was to command. His eyes scanned the sleek, metal bodies, taking in the gun-pods slung centerline on each fighter, lingering over the capacious missile bays, well-stocked with deadly ordnance. Missile craft, from the looks of it--much like the Sienar Missile Boat that had widely been considered, in his own universe to be the epitome of starfighter design. If the craft were indeed as capable as his preliminary inspection seemed to indicate, and if their ordnance was anything near the standard of that employed by the Imperial Navy, he wagered that with them under his command, he would cut a swathe through anything they were likely to encounter.  
  
Then, he frowned. He would be able to cut a swathe through any enemy he was likely to encounter-that was, of course, if he and his.assistants would be able to train sufficient numbers of the people now residing in the fortress' holds to operate and use the damn things. True, these were desperate times, desperate enough for the measures Stalker proposed, but uplifting a pre-gunpowder civilization straight to the space age? He shook his head. It was a risky gamble.  
  
The Chiss admiral looked round. Stalker had told him he'd be able to find his fighter commander here. Where was the man?  
  
His gaze fell upon a slender, sandy haired man standing under the wing of a recently arrived spacecraft, speaking with the pilot. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. Were those corrective lenses that pilot was wearing? He certainly seemed an unlikely choice for one. Slim, long-haired, a mild expression on his face, he seemed more like a scholar than anything else. And yet.  
  
There was something about the man that gave Thrawn pause. He'd seen the way the man moved. He had a smooth, predatory grace that belied his mild exterior and put Thrawn in mind of some of his Noghri bodyguards. So. Thrawn nodded. In all likelihood, the man was, in his own way, just as efficient a killer as the Noghri had been. He would have to watch this individual.  
  
He turned his attention to the other man. If he wasn't mistaken, this would be the person he was looking for. The man was clad in a blue undress uniform, significantly different from what those REF personnel he'd met had worn. His tired face still bore the remnants of a boyish handsomeness, though the strains of a lifetime full of cares had stamped their mark upon it. He looked tired. On reflection, Thrawn didn't blame him. He'd been given a brief summation of the man's career by Stalker. The man had fought through hell and back out again in the service of his country. He'd dived through whole fleets, single-handedly pulled victory out of the jaws of defeat for entire fleets several times in his career. And he had been the man who, under orders from his government, had dropped a bomb that killed an entire planet. If any man had a right to look tired, with so many deaths on his soul, it would be him.  
  
Thrawn's eyes flickered up to meet the other man's. The man was tired, yes. But he still had the eyes of a killer. And something in those eyes told Thrawn that, time and time again, for as long as was necessary, this man would fly once more into the jaws of hell. And he would win.  
  
Seeing his approach, the blue-uniformed man turned and saluted. "Commodore Christopher Blair," he introduced himself. "Terran Confederation Navy. You must be Admiral Thrawn." To his credit, aside from a slight widening of his eyes, he did not display any reaction towards Thrawn's obvious inhumanity.  
  
Thrawn returned the salute, then shook hands, suppressing a frown. Now that he had gotten a better look at the man, he felt sure he knew him from somewhere. The problem was, where?  
  
Blair indicated the man standing next to him. "My colleague, Commodore Max Sterling, Robotech Expeditionary Force."  
  
Thrawn inclined his head, extending his hand as he did so. "A pleasure to meet you, Commodore," he said.  
  
Sterling took the outstretched hand, his smile almost deceptively mild. "Sir." His grip was firm, the pressure almost exactly identical to that exerted by Thrawn. "I believe the pleasure's all mine. We've heard quite a lot about you."  
  
Thrawn cocked his head to one side. "Ah? And that would be.?" If Stalker had briefed them concerning everything he'd done.  
  
"You've had a very.interesting career, sir." Sterling shrugged. "At least, that's what Stalker tells us." The look he bestowed upon Thrawn was chilling in its utter lack of intensity. There was just the same expression-that same inscrutable affability that, for the past few minutes, Thrawn had observed him display towards Blair. Not even the man's eyes betrayed a hint of any hostility, any veiled animus towards the Chiss admiral who, as he surely had to know, had tread a path of blood in his quest to bring peace to a troubled galaxy. Thrawn's eyes narrowed. If anything, this only served to confirm his initial observation. The commodore was no ordinary man. If anything, he put Thrawn in mind of a concept mentioned in the works of a certain Terran philosopher he'd come across, browsing through Stalker's library.  
  
If ever there were a man who embodied the very tenets of the philosophy of Nietzsche, that man was Sterling.  
  
Thrawn nodded. "Yes," he said, a faint smile upon his lips. "I believe I have."  
  
"And what do you think of your latest assignment, Admiral?" asked Sterling as Thrawn led the two pilots to one of the briefing rooms just off the hanger deck.  
  
Blair snorted. "I feel like a madman just for saying 'yes'. Training up a bunch of bowmen and knights to pilot starfighters? I get a headache just thinking about it."  
  
Thrawn regarded him with a wry glance before palming open the door and stepping through. "Yes," he said. "It does seem quite an impossible task, does it not?" A large urn of coffee stood in the corner. Max Sterling went over to pour himself a cup.  
  
"Coffee?" he asked the other two. Thrawn shook his head.  
  
"I'll have a cup," said Blair.  
  
Sterling brought the full cups of steaming liquid over. The other two men watched him as he navigated the cluttered floor, still strewn with various pieces of electronic equipment and power cables. Crossing to where Blair was seated, he placed the cup gently on the little folding table attached to the arm of Blair's chair.  
  
Blair looked at it. The liquid within the cup was almost perfectly still, as if it had sat there upon the table for thousands upon thousands of years, instead of having been placed there only moments before, by a slim, blue-haired man with spectacles who yet laid claim to the title of one of the greatest fighter pilots in the multiverse. He blinked. An alien, a guy who moved like nothing he'd ever known-and him. A pilot. A pilot who had, it was true, become a legend in his own lifetime. But still, just an ordinary man. It was true. The two men with whom he was sitting, in a darkened room located on the periphery of a giant steel sphere somewhere in the outer dimensions-they intimidated him. One had, by all accounts he'd heard, an intellect that towered head and shoulders-and more-above that of any other tactician he'd ever known. The other moved like a wraith, his every movement as graceful as a tree swaying in the wind, as smooth as flowing water. And then there were the others.  
  
Not for the first time, Commodore Christopher Blair, late of the Terran Confederation Navy, wondered what he was doing working with these people.  
  
Thrawn looked at him. The blond pilot's unease was becoming increasingly clear to him. He too had seen Sterling set down the cup before Blair without causing so much as a ripple in the liquid's surface. While it did not seem that the blond man's unease would ever prevent him from carrying out his obligations-he had seen too much, done too many things for that ever to happen-yet Thrawn still felt a vague uneasiness. Blair was an ordinary man, walking amongst titans. And yet-and yet Stalker had seen fit to bring Blair into this fellowship of heroes, these champions of eternity. And Thrawn agreed with him. By any standard, Blair's performance through thirty years of continuous war against the Kilrathi, his own government, and the mysterious Nephilim had been nothing short of spectacular.  
  
The only problem was, beside men who could fly unaided through outer space and destroy entire worlds with their bare hands or sheer force of will alone, beside an alien whose intelligence seemed nigh inhuman, beside a man-another fighter pilot, no less!-who moved with the fluid grace of the very gods and whose enigmatic smile concealed the gods knew what-beside them, what place did Commodore Christopher Blair have?  
  
Thrawn bestowed a benignant smile of his own upon the other two men. "What do I think of our current mission?" he asked, repeating Sterling's question. The left corner of his mouth drooped down, leaving the other still elevated in a sardonic smile. "I find it.fascinating. I've had to carve out a victory with limited resources before. As, I am told, has Commodore Blair." He shrugged, a small twitch upwards of his shoulders. "Not anything on the scale of the operations we're currently contemplating, but still." The smile was back, and it was now the smile of a predator, sated from its last kill. "I believe it will be a challenge."  
  
Blair had started when Thrawn mentioned his name. "You know-you know about everything I've done?"  
  
Thrawn nodded. "A brief study of your career has proved to be.most interesting. I particularly found your actions during the Tiger's Claw's campaign against the Dreadnought Sivar and your part in the Border Worlds conflict extremely fascinating."  
  
Blair chuckled mirthlessly. "The Border Worlds. Huh." His eyes were haunted as he looked up at the alien admiral. "After all those years.having fought so long, lost so many friends-" he swallowed, clearly in the grip of some strong emotion. "And the government I'd fought for turned out to be bloody corrupt!" This last word was a snarl, punctuated by a blow of his fist to the arm of his chair.  
  
Thrawn looked at him, his face still. He knew what Blair was talking about. He'd been there himself, during those dark years just after he'd entered the service of Emperor Palpatine. It was only after he had ventured back into the Unknown Regions and discovered the horrors lurking in the outer dark beyond the Rim, that he had found new purpose.  
  
This man, this Commodore Christopher Blair, was an officer, a good one, just as he was. The similarity would not be all that obvious, to an observer meeting both men for the first time, but it was there. They had seen worlds, fought wars across the breadth of galaxies. They had sworn oaths in service to their motherlands, to preserve all that was good and right about the cultures to which they had been born.  
  
And then, they had betrayed those oaths, cut themselves off irrevocably from the powers they had served so faithfully and for so long. In Thrawn's case, he had found the preservation of his people more important than his oath. In Blair's case.  
  
In Blair's case, the very government he'd sworn to protect had proved unworthy of his oath.  
  
There was that same streak of ruthlessness in them, ruthlessness and a loyalty to an order higher even than governments, powers and principalities. It had brought Thrawn to exile from his people in the service or a power-mad tyrant. It had brought Blair nothing but a life filled with war and suffering, a life in which he outlived friends, lovers, saw bright young men and women throw their lives away for a cause. And here he was, sucked into yet another war to train and send forth yet another generation of young men and women into the meat-grinder.  
  
"It never changes, does it?" Blair asked. "I think.I can see it in you. You're a killer. Just like I am and just like he is." He nodded in Sterling's direction.  
  
The long-haired man raised an eyebrow. "It's not something I consider myself to be," he objected.  
  
Blair's smile was utterly without mirth. "Really? Tell me: how many enemy pilots have you killed so far? A thousand? Two thousand? I have over five on my record-and my conscience."  
  
"One thousand, eight-hundred and fifty-seven," replied Sterling. "Mostly Zentraedi battle pods and Invid. A few Tirolean Bioroids." His expression shifted, became, somehow, more intense. Where before, he had seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, just a man who happened to be able to move with a fluidity that would have reduced most martial artists to tears, now there was something else. His eyes, glinting behind their corrective glasses, now became as those of a striking hawk, their focus almost inhuman. Max Sterling was a killer.  
  
And the frightening part was, the man himself didn't seem to notice a thing about it.  
  
Thrawn looked at him. Nothing much had changed. Sterling still wore that same, inoffensive expression he had always worn. Only the eyes had changed- only they seemed to give any hint of the Fury that lay beneath that mild exterior.  
  
Blair's smile turned ironic. "And you claim not to be a killer," he said.  
  
Sterling shrugged. "I'm just a guy. It was something I had to do."  
  
Blair chuckled. "Isn't that the truth? It's always something we have to do." He trailed off, regarding the other pilot silently, as if contemplating the hidden depths that lay within the man's soul.  
  
Then, he shook himself, as if remembering something. "Well," he said, under his breath, as if speaking half to himself. "Enough of that. Max? You were just telling me about those fascinating starfighters of yours. Care to tell the admiral what you've just told me?"  
  
Sterling smiled. There was no hint of the hawk now, just a long-haired, slender young man with a friendly, open expression.  
  
"Certainly."  
  
She floated, her hair fanning out around her head in the void like a vivid burst of flame. This was deep space, the long dark silence between the stars. It called to her, its siren song echoing in the chambers of her heart.  
  
The spheres called to her-called in ways not even her telepathy, honed as it had been in the days before her.unexpected transformation could have revealed to her. She was.aware. She knew, in the deepest intimacy, every one of the millions of voices that sang to her through the void, each one of them an infinitesimal speck of life cradled in the bosoms of the many great orbs that bore them in their rotations about the suns that gave them life. The voices filled her mind, each one expounding on a celestial theme in all its infinite complexity.  
  
It was a balm to her soul. She would have immersed herself in the beauty of the celestial song, cast aside her anger and her pain and joined in the chorus of creation as it sang a paen to the transcendental joy of existence itself.  
  
Her hand stole silently toward the hilt of the sword scabbarded at her side. A blade of legend, it was-an artifact so potent that its power rivaled that of the stars itself. It had been forged in the darkest days of her own home planet as a weapon of war, a talisman, granting its wielder the power to summon a wrathful god. Sharra was destruction personified, the very spirit of the raging forest fires that rampaged unchecked across the surface of the unhappy planet. For a thousand years, that spirit had reigned as, mad with power-lust, the lords of Darkover had developed weapons powered by the very forces of the mind itself, breeding the lethal gifts into their very offspring. The resulting carnage had left the planet desolate, its once proud kingdoms fractured into a hundred feuding realms.  
  
The Sword of Sharra had been the most dangerous of all the weapons created in that time. Thus was her curse: to be bonded, mind and soul to the unholy thing, to live an eternity with the weight of the accursed weapon bearing down upon her soul.  
  
It was too high a price to pay, she thought. In exchange for endless bliss.what? To unleash upon the universe an angry god? To allow the dark being lurking within the sword to take control of her helpless body as her mind floated, lost within an eternal fugue state as part of the celestial chorus? She could feel the power coursing through her veins, boosting her telepathic abilities to levels unheard of in all Darkover's history. She could control the minds of entire planets, now, cross impossible distances in the blink of an eye. The flames of Sharra leapt to life at her command. She could do anything. All she had to do was to keep the mind of a goddess at bay.  
  
Damn them all, she thought. The two men-one muscled and clad in armor as black as night, the other with skin of living gold and eyes that looked upon the world through hourglasses-they had approached her, offering her a choice between a new life, and a bitter death raging against the forces now reshaping her homeworld. There had been a warning as well: a dire tale of a malevolent force warping the very fabric of reality itself for its own ends.  
  
She had almost rejected them of course, summoning her own psionic abilities to strike down the impudent pair who had invaded her inner sanctum. The golden one had gestured-and her most potent attacks had simply vanished, as if they had never been.  
  
He'd smiled then, mocking her. "There are more things in existence than even the Keeper of a Tower can imagine, Lady Leonie," he'd said. "Did you really imagine this pathetic planet was everything that mattered in this universe? Your Comyn Lords, hiding in their castles while their Terran cousins stride across the stars? This ball of rock and mud, against all the infinite multitudes of worlds?" She'd attempted to answer, to fling back an angry retort-only to discover she was unable to move so much as a single muscle. She'd stood, frozen in place seemingly at the will of the strange man before her. Desperately, she lashed out with her mind, a psychic blow that could, and had left lesser men mindless.  
  
The golden man simply smiled, looking her straight in the eye as her attack passed straight through him as if he had never been there. "Come, now. Is that all you can do? Yours is a heavy responsibility, Leonie Hastur." Beside him, she saw the armored man wince. "Surely you are better equipped for the task than that." The robed man shrugged. "It matters not, I suppose. Soon the matter of your powers will become an academic question."  
  
The man beside him frowned, and coughed. There was a brief, whispered conversation between the two. A brief snippet of the robed man's speech carried across the room to her ears. "Are you uncomfortable with this, my comrade? We will see, then. Are you willing to trust my judgment in this? Or do you still fear the machinations of the inscrutable mage? We shall see, shan't we?"  
  
The armored man stared at his companion a while, then nodded his head. He said something to the golden one that Leonie couldn't quite make out. The golden man smiled. "Please. Do you ever think I wouldn't?" He turned back to Leonie, his arms held out before him, palms turned upwards as if waiting to receive something.  
  
There was a shimmering in the air above the golden man's palms. Through the shimmering, almost as if conjured out of thin air, a long, thin object appeared, it's outline blurred and indistinct. Gradually, the object solidified, its weight pressing down upon the strange man's palms. As the last of the shimmering died away, the true form of the mysterious object lay revealed.  
  
It was a sword, its crossguard and pommel encrusted with precious stones, rubies that burned with an inner light, the malevolent red glow casting deep, ominous shadows across the man's sharp features. Leonie fought to scream as she realized just exactly what it was that the golden- skinned man had brought into her presence.  
  
Nothing. The man had advanced, the sword held out before him like a malign talisman. Nearer he came, as the ruby light from within the gems began to flicker and grow, casting weird, dancing shadows across the room's walls like flames from the bottommost pit of hell. Closer, and closer, and the last things that Leonie Hastur, Keeper of the Arilinn Tower on the telepath planet of Darkover saw and felt before her consciousness sank, blissfully into oblivion, were the searing pain as flames reached forth from within the gems to consume her, body, mind and soul, and the horrid image of a chained maiden, her hair wreathed in flames, breaking her bonds with a shout of exultation and soaring off into space, borne on wings of fire.  
  
When she awoke, she had found herself lying upon a bed on board what she later learned was a giant sphere, its captain the darkly-armored man she had seen standing by as the golden-skinned man-Raistlin, she had learned his name was, had done.whatever it was that he had done to her.  
  
She could feel it, burning deep within her. Power. Power sufficient to tear worlds apart from pole to pole, sufficient to snuff out the lives of countless millions with but the merest exercise of will. In a way, it was hers, now. The being whose consciousness had once rested within the sword now slumbered within her. The sword at her side was useless, now, she realized; just a sword, neither better nor worse than any other that had issued from the same smith's forge, back during the Ages of Chaos. For all intents and purposes, Leonie Hastur was the Sharra Matrix, most powerful of all the matrix weapons that had ever existed since Man first set foot upon the wind-blasted world that was Cottbus IV.  
  
Already, the power had started to change her from within, shaping her body and mind to purposes unknown. She brought her hands up, looking at them for what seemed to her to be the millionth time since she'd come to.  
  
Gone were the purpled veins, the joints swollen by arthritis, the paper-thin skin. In their place, supple, soft young flesh, the skin smooth as it had been the day she had rode with her entourage to join the telepaths at Arilinn Tower, there to be trained in the use of the mind- gifts that were her heritage.  
  
The hands then went to her face, the fingers now probing the unaccustomed smoothness with a dexterity they had not possessed for many a year. It felt almost delightful to move with such freedom, unencumbered by the pains of age. And yet.she remembered the cost, and the thought of such a price weighed heavily upon her heart.  
  
Accept.and become the avatar of a dark goddess. Leonie wanted to scream, to lash out. This had not been what she wanted, any of this. After the Forbidden Tower, and the battle, and the complete destruction of everything she had held dear, all the ideals she'd given up everything for- her life, her family, even.even her womanhood. She had neutered herself, that fateful day, tearing out her feminity even as Damon Ridenow-dear handsome Damon, to tempt even a Keeper to forsake her vows!-had ridden forth from the tower, exiled for daring to look at her as a man looks upon a woman.  
  
When Damon and that thrice-damned Terran had, along with their brides, created that accursed Tower of their own and stood against her- defeated her in psychic combat, all she had wanted to do was die, to pass away from this world in which all her sacrifices, everything she'd lived her life for, had, ultimately, turned out to be for nought.  
  
Instead, she'd been kidnapped by these unknown men, forced into unholy union with an artifact whose dread reputation still echoed hollowly down the ages, and drafted into a war she barely understood.  
  
Not that she doubted that there was a war, after all-the evidence they'd presented had been too conclusive for that. Yet the sheer scope of it.her mind boggled. And there was doubt, too. If, as they truly claimed, these men were on the side of angels, why then had they done this to her?  
  
Behind her, the very fabric of space itself parted as, opening a portal through which, almost as if taking a pleasant stroll through a Darkover mountain meadow, stepped Raistlin Majere, out into the void between the stars.  
  
She whirled, the minute sub?theric disturbance of the portal's opening registering to her enhanced senses as the minutest whisper of a nonexistent wind upon her skin.  
  
Her eyes widened. "You! What-"  
  
Raistlin merely smiled. "Me. You were expecting somebody else? I am all there is, I'm afraid." He gestured round with an outstretched arm, in one grandiose gesture indicating the stars shining brightly all around, above and below them. "All this, and all that is in it, is yours. You have been exploring, I see."  
  
"Exploring?" Her laugh was harsh. "Damn you, whatever you are. I never asked for this-for any of this. Did you think-" her voice broke, so strong was the emotion coursing through her-"did you think there was anywhere else I could be, after what you did?" She turned away. "I want nothing to do with you, Raistlin Majere. Or your friends. Go, now, before I unleash the dark goddess you have placed within me."  
  
To her surprise, the hourglass-eyed man laughed. "A dark goddess, you say? Perhaps." His smile was thin enough to slice the electrons off an atom. "Yet you seem so ready to unleash her in all her power. What do you really want, Leonie Hastur? You claim this thing I have placed within you is evil-yet the power-it calls to you. Yours is the multiverse, and everything within it-so long as you are willing to take it." He raised an eyebrow. "Tempting, is it not?"  
  
He watched her as she whirled, her crimson tresses tossing in the cosmic winds, her mouth open, ready to shout an angry denial. The Flames of Sharra flared, a brilliant crimson-orange, bright against the blackness of space. Fiery tongues danced, racing up and down her arms and gathering about her fists, forming twin spheres of pyrokinetic energy that blazed uncannily in the void.  
  
"See?" he said, before she could utter a word. "You reject the power, yet it leaps to your command at every opportunity. Why struggle? Embrace it!" His own thin hand shot out, the metallic skin gleaming as it reflected the baleful light of Sharra's Flames. Eldritch energy crackled through the ether, forming an uncanny aura about his clenched fist, casting a cold, eerie light upon the strange man's face.  
  
Leonie stared, horrified. "What-what are you?" The power she had just felt unleashed was nothing like any she had ever seen. There was a sense of almost infinite depth to the power, an almost tranquil omnipresence permeating all of space around them and beyond. And yet-such power, when unleashed.  
  
She shuddered. As well to try to stem the tides, or a raging forest fire, with one's own bare hands. Such was the sheer potential energy that small display had revealed.  
  
Raistlin smiled. "A Sorcerer Supreme," he replied. "I am a Master of the Mystic Arts, mage-protector of a universe entire. I have fought gods, destroyed worlds, faced down the hidden horrors that lurk beyond the rim of reality. I have seen things even you, Leonie Hastur, would run from screaming in fear. It was I who chose you, Leonie, to bear the burden which you now bear." The hourglass eyes bored, unblinkingly, into her own. "You know what it is we face, my lady. Times call for desperate measures, lest we all fall into ruin and destruction. Can you, who chose to stand watch at Arilinn Tower for all your life, despite all you knew you would be giving up-you, who kept your station despite the temptations and disappointments your life brought you-abandon those who would otherwise die to their fates? Can the sense of duty that brought you to do these things allow you to do this?"  
  
Leonie laughed, a bitter sound empowered by years of self-denial squandered. "And see where it got me. My life-all I had worked for, overturned! By an upstart Terran, and the bride he stole from me! The girl was meant to take my place-to carry on the task of holding the Tower. He stole her, then rendered all my sacrifices-all I had given, all those generations of Keepers before me had given-all for nought. Tell me, sorcerer: after all that, do you still trust my sense of responsibility to all the world around me?" She raised her arms, the flames still playing over them. "When all I have left to look forward to is to be consumed by this dark creature inside of me?" She clenched her fists and turned away.  
  
Raistlin watched her for a few moments. Then, just as he was about to speak.  
  
"Yes, damn you!" Her voice was harsh, ragged with emotion. Her shoulders heaved, as if she were fighting to keep from weeping. "I'll do it!" She turned, and there were tears in her eyes. "I will join you in this war of yours, damn you. If what you say is true, there's not much else I can do, can I?" Her voice grew soft. "Even if all that awaits me is fiery death."  
  
Raistlin nodded. "Very well." With the merest effort of will, he crossed the space between them, coming to a stop directly in front of her. With a gaunt finger, he reached beneath her chin, gently tipping her face back and forcing her to look into his eyes. She recoiled, in shock, the flames once more springing to life around her. The sorcerer made no move to follow.  
  
"I will not dissimulate with you," he said, his face impassive. "You are right. The flames that I have awakened within you-they will consume you."  
  
Leonie made no reply-her only response was a shrug, accompanied by a bitter twist of her lips. Silently, she turned her gaze away from the sorcerer, staring off into the infinite depths of space.  
  
"And yet," continued the sorcerer, his head cocked to one side, as if recalling to memory some fact long forgotten, "do you remember, Leonie Hastur, what happened, that day, when in dragon form you attempted to burn the Tower formed by the renegade Damon Ridenow and his circle from the face of the Overworld-what happened then?"  
  
Her head rose, nostrils flaring. How well indeed, did she remember what had happened next: as, fiery breath spurting, scouring the abomination before her from existence, she had been surprised as a great bird of flame soared, wings flaring, forth from within the depths of her telepathic inferno. She had known defeat then; known, even as her heart screamed and fought to deny the horrid fact, that she, the greatest of all telepaths upon the planet Darkover in her day, could not, for all she tried, destroy the four lovers who stood thus, ready to defy her.  
  
A bird of flame. Surely-  
  
Raistlin nodded. "The phoenix. Just so. Just as the flames consume you, thus will you be reborn." He smiled. "Did you think us so heartless, Lady Leonie, as to thus consign you once more to a thankless task? If anything, my colleagues among the Council would refuse further contact with me. You will be reborn, my lady, as something far and infinitely greater than even you, who kept the Tower at Arilinn could ever imagine."  
  
"And what will I be, then?" she asked, her face pale.  
  
Raistlin did not answer, then. He stood, silently, head cocked to one side, studying her as if she were a specimen in a jar. Finally, he spoke, as if in answer to her question.  
  
"Yourself," he said.  
  
Leonie laughed, and in that laugh, perhaps, there was less of bitterness or unhappiness to be found than there previously had been. "I will believe that, Raistlin Majere, when it happens," she cried. "In the meanwhile." She let the sentence trail off.  
  
There was silence for a few moments. Finally, Leonie spoke again. "So, sorcerer. You sought me here. To what, may I ask, do I owe the honor?"  
  
"I thought I might ask you to dinner, my lady."  
  
She stared. "What?"  
  
He smiled at her discomfiture. "Did you not hear? There is a dinner tonight-Stalker proposed it, as a measure to allow the members of our little.assemblage to come to know each other." He raised an eyebrow. "It is a queer lot we are, too. Personally, I would not go, but." He spread his hands. "One pays a price, I suppose, for working in a group. We must ever be tolerant of the foibles of others."  
  
"It amazes me to say this, sorcerer, but you are one of the most arrogant men I have ever met."  
  
He bowed. "I but aim to please. Come, my lady," he said, reopening the portal in space with a wave of his hand. "Perhaps you will do me the honor of accompanying me to this little gathering our host has planned?"  
  
She strode past him, her head held at a haughty angle, flames trailing behind her. Smiling, he held the portal open, until she had passed through it, and followed her, closing it as he stepped from the void of space to the cavernous halls of Stalker's World-Sphere.  
  
Behind him, as the tear in space mended itself, the flames marking the lady telepath's trail flared, and for one brief moment, formed the shape of a striking bird of flame, before dying down into the darkness.  
  
Stalker strode down the corridor, rubbing his cheek as he did so. Damn it all, he thought, reviewing in his mind the memory of his last conversation with Amalthea. He could still feel her lips, brushing delicately across the spot that, even now, his fingers worked, nervously, at. It's all psychosomatic, man, he told himself. An unbidden I hope wormed its way free of his subconscious to join the others dancing merrily before his mind's eye. He sighed.  
  
He turned a corner and came face to face with the very person he'd been thinking of. He stopped, dead.  
  
"Uh, Amalthea. Hello," he said, by way of greeting. Well, that was clumsy.  
  
The second thing that ran through his mind was, for what seemed like the thousandth time since he'd placed his cape about her naked shoulders that night in the darkened room on board the World Sphere, Damn, she's beautiful.  
  
Her skin, as silk smooth as the soaring quantum winds coursing through the spaces between universes, almost glowing in the light from the overhead panels illuminating the bare passageway; her swan-like neck rising gracefully over the dress he'd procured for her, swirling slightly in the breeze produced by the World Sphere's ventilation system.  
  
Dammit! Focus, man! It took nearly all his willpower to prevent himself from shaking his head hard, trying to clear it of the fog that seemed to have dropped down upon it like a heavy curtain the moment he'd caught sight of her.  
  
"Stalker." She glided up to him, her face solemn. Silently, he allowed her to take his hand affectionately into her own.  
  
He remembered the old times, back in the forest, when, weary after a long mission, he would repair there, to rest awhile among the shady groves and sun-lit clearings of her now-lost home, and, with his head pillowed against her flank, or hers cradled in his lap, they would speak of things far away, of wondrous sights they'd seen, and simply drink in the wondrous beauty of those woods. She had been his friend, his best friend-and now, she was a woman.  
  
And, like it or not, he had a ominous feeling that he was falling head over heels in love with her.  
  
Idly, he wondered if it was any consolation that almost the entire male population of the Sphere, and a goodly number of the females, had done the same thing. Probably not.  
  
She was smiling at him now, the expression seeming to him like a ray of heavenly light, spearing through the darkness of the void itself. "Is it time?" she asked.  
  
He had some difficulty figuring out exactly what it was the woman who had been the Last Unicorn was referring to, so overwhelmed was he by her presence. Gradually, it dawned on him.  
  
"The dinner, yes," he said, almost stumbling over the words. "I'm on my way there myself. The others should be arriving quite soon."  
  
He fell silent as they continued down the corridor, her arm through his. At length, he spoke, again, more as a way of breaking what, to him, seemed like a heavy, awkward silence.  
  
"It was.good to see you smile, Amalthea," he ventured. He took a deep breath. Got to be careful here. "I only wish it could have been sooner. We've all been waiting so anxiously to see you smile."  
  
She turned. "I know," she replied. "It's.strange. I never knew it could feel so-so good."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "Smiling?"  
  
She nodded. "I thought I would never have cause to do so, not after.what happened. Not after what I lost."  
  
Stalker nodded, sympathetically. "I wish there were more we could do, really. As it is.I just hope you'll be happy here with us-with your friends."  
  
She sighed. "I hope so too," she said, as they stopped before the door that led to the dining chamber Stalker had set aside for that evening's gathering. He waved his hand across the sensor plate set into the wall just beside the door, and the portal irised open.  
  
They stepped through. The chamber beyond was small, just large enough to contain the long oak table that had been placed there, covered with a white cloth and laid with places for twelve people. There was another person there, leaning against the wall next to a small bar that had been placed in the corner, a nearly-full tumbler of brandy in her hand. The woman pushed herself off the wall as they entered, raising her glass in salute as she did so.  
  
Stalker nodded. "Ms. Newfield. I wasn't expecting you here so early."  
  
The woman snorted. "Ya think? I got bored. Mighty fine place you got here. Big as a small moon, and nothing to do." She came towards the two, her gait a confident strut. She was clad in whipcord breeches and riding boots, her sun-bleached blonde hair spilling over a dark riding jacket worn over a white shirt. She looked curiously at Amalthea.  
  
"Hey," she said, by way of greeting. "Aren't you going to introduce us, big man?" she asked.  
  
"Ah. Forgive my lack of manners. May I present my companion, the Lady Amalthea, formerly the Last Unicorn, empath and healer for our little band of heroes. Amalthea, this Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield, the Crackshot, our new resident marksperson and late member of the illustrious Aeon Society for Gentlemen."  
  
Amalthea smiled, extending her hand to the other woman, who took it in an iron grip.  
  
Stalker paused for a moment, looking between the two of them, then excused himself, going to the door, where he spoke a few words of greeting to Raistlin and Leonie Hastur, who had just entered side by side.  
  
"Drink?" asked Annabelle, going to the bar and holding up a bottle of Stalker's finest brandy. It was already half-empty.  
  
Amalthea considered the bottle a few moments, then nodded. Annabelle promptly grabbed a glass from the tray, filled it to the brim with amber fluid and thrust it into the surprised Amalthea's hand.  
  
"Th-thank you," she said, taken aback by the other woman's boisterous demeanor. She took a cautious sip of the strong-smelling liquid, and immediately found herself forced to suppress a coughing fit.  
  
Annabelle dissolved into raucous laughter. Amalthea could only stare, shocked, the alcohol causing an unpleasant heat to rise to her face.  
  
"Oh, sorry," said Annabelle, recovering her composure. "Don't you have alcohol where you come from?" she continued, taking the glass from Amalthea's unresisting hand and draining it in one gulp.  
  
"No, I-I don't," stammered Amalthea, at the same time wondering what 'alcohol' was.  
  
The other woman regarded her appraisingly out of the corner of her eye. She was attractive, in a way, with laughing blue eyes set in a strong- featured face that had obviously seen many suns. On any other woman the effect would have been one of masculinity-on her, however, it seemed to fit. The overall effect was one of fluid energy, of deadly force contained in a manner that left it no less dangerous for all its feminity.  
  
Finally, she spoke. "What'd the big man pick you up here for, anyway? You're pretty, I'll admit, but you've also got that Look about you. You've had a taste of the Life, haven't you?"  
  
Amalthea stared back, uncomprehending. The Life, Annabelle, had said. It sounded almost mystical, a mystery laid open only to a chosen few. She looked at the other woman-really looked-and saw.  
  
.A life of strife, of wide strides across the canvas of a world larger than life, of danger-filled expeditions to lost cities and lonely gun-battles aboard out-of control zeppelins. It was a life lived above and beyond the scenes and dreams of all the huddled masses, filled with danger, set apart. And yet-and yet above all that, there was joy, a sense of wonder at the beholding of such things, a delirious rhapsodical revel in the madness and the beauty of it all.  
  
All this, Amalthea saw. And, for the first time, she realized what allure this life held; what it was that drove people like Stalker and the woman before her to risk their lives, over and over again, in nigh incomprehensible struggles against evil after evil. And, also for the first time, how irrevocably she'd set forth on such a life, the day her feet trod the lonesome path leading from her wood, as she went out into the wide world, searching for her lost race.  
  
"I-is that what it is to you?" she asked. "This Life of yours?"  
  
Annabelle looked at her sharply. The other woman's face softened as she saw the pain in Amalthea's eyes-or maybe it was the empathic surge that, across the room, caused Stalker, Leonie and Raistlin to look up in alarm.  
  
"You poor kid. You look as if you got nothing out of it but a whole lot of pain. What happened?"  
  
Amalthea pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. Stalker and Raistlin came over, concerned expressions on their faces, followed closely by Leonie.  
  
"That surge," she said. "Was it.?"  
  
Stalker nodded. He knelt down before her, taking her hands in his.  
  
"Amalthea. What happened?" His voice was soft, soothing. She could feel his concern as he looked up into her face.  
  
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just.is that why you do it? To see the wonder-the beauty-of it all?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"And is that why for all those years I found myself friendless among my own people-because I'd become different from them?"  
  
He nodded, again, his face sad. "I'm sorry."  
  
Leonie came forward and knelt beside Stalker. Amalthea felt, briefly, a faint sensation of something trailing through her mind. The red- headed woman's eyes focused, intently on Amalthea's face.  
  
"So old a mind," she whispered, "yet so much like that of a child." She turned to Stalker. "Her laran is strange. So limited, and yet so powerful, in its own way. She has not had it long, has she?"  
  
Stalker shook his head. "Only for the past few weeks." He looked back at Amalthea. "Would you like to tell them, or should I?"  
  
Amalthea took a deep breath. "I'll tell," she said.  
  
So it all came out: that strange and sad tale of a unicorn's first steps into a world far wider than her own dear woods; of how, for the first time, she had become a woman. She spoke of how she'd journeyed, with her people, to a new home, only to find herself, after her experiences, almost an alien among those innocent folk.  
  
She stopped, then, trying to gather the courage to carry on. Stalker intervened, then, asking her if she wished him to carry on the narrative. She shook her head, then went on.  
  
She spoke of how she'd met Stalker, how they'd become friends. And then, she spoke of that day, barely a few weeks past, its horror still fresh in her mind, when the Chaos Marines had come.  
  
"So. That's her story," said a voice.  
  
Stalker looked up. "Admiral Thrawn," he said. "And Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes-Hunter. And Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling." He moved to shake their hands. "My apologies. Have you been waiting long?"  
  
Rick Hunter, Admiral, ace pilot and commander of the Robotech Expeditionary Force smiled. "Ah, no, not really." He glanced around the room. "You're all rather.interesting people here," he commented.  
  
Stalker smiled back. "That's why we're here in the first place, Admiral. We wouldn't be otherwise." Beyond the Admiral's shoulder, he saw Blair slip into the room, dressed in a Terran Confederation Navy pilot's dress uniform, and followed closely by Prince Lew. "Well, now. I see the last members of our little party have arrived. Let's take our seats, shall we, and I'll make the introductions."  
  
He escorted the two couples to the table, where the others had already taken their places. He then moved to the head of the table, pausing only to whisper into Amalthea's ear.  
  
"Might we meet, later? I think we need to talk."  
  
She looked at him, then nodded.  
  
"I'll wait for you in the monitor room, then." He smiled at her, then went to take his place.  
  
Standing at the head of the table, he cleared his throat. "Ah, good evening, everybody. I've asked all of you here tonight so that we might get to know each other a little better-after all, we'll be spending the next few years working with each other." He looked around. "As you can see, we're rather a diverse group here-we have a mage, Raistlin Majere," and he raised his glass to the sorcerer before continuing, "a telepath, the Lady Leonie of Arilinn; we have military men and women, the Admirals Rick and Lisa Hayes Hunter, commanders of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, and Commodore Max and Colonel Miriya Sterling, their fighter commanders, as well as Admiral Thrawn, who'll be commanding the fleet that the REF will help us build, and Commodore Christopher Blair, who'll be commanding our fighter contingent. We have one of the best markspersons in the multiverse, Ms. Annabelle Lee Newfield. We have the prince who's going to lead his people from the pre-industrial age to the space age." He turned to the beautiful woman by his side. "And we have the Lady Amalthea, our empath, and healer.  
  
"Like I've said," he continued, "we're going to be working together for some time to come. This is a war for the fate of all realities, here. We fight against a disease, against the very fabric of reality itself gone mad. And it is our lot, as what we are-adventurers, champions striding across greater realities than have been revealed to the common man-to combat it."  
  
Stalker lifted his glass. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I propose a toast to this gathering of allies. May our association be ever successful."  
  
Raistlin cleared his throat. "Hold. And what are we to call ourselves, while we are thus engaged? Are we to remain nameless?"  
  
Stalker raised an eyebrow. "Is that really necessary?"  
  
Raistlin smiled, thinly. "I suppose. After all, every alliance of heroes needs a name to call itself by. Would we be heroes otherwise?"  
  
Stalker returned the smile. "Very well. I have said that we are champions, and it is for eternity's sake that we fight. Should we call ourselves that, then? The Champions of Eternity?"  
  
The mage shrugged. "As appropriate a name as any. Do you all agree?"  
  
There was a chorus of assents, of various degrees of enthusiasm, from the heroes gathered at the table.  
  
Stalker laughed. "Very well, then." He raised his glass once more as the rest of the party rose to their feet. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you.the Champions of Eternity!" 


End file.
